Margaret Tyson, a graduate student, said she may have second thoughts about ordering her pasta from Cafe 212 this week, after a routine inspection reported a record number of health code violations.
Mice and filth flies were a few of the 62 violation points cited for the shared kitchen of Cafe 212 and University Event Management, according to a recent inspection from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
“I eat there almost every week,” Tyson said. “I eat there because it’s convenient and it has selection, but now I don’t know if I’ll still go.”
The Cafe 212 facility received 11 points during the inspection and the additional 51 violation points came from the kitchen shared by the facility in Lerner and UEM, Victoria Dunn, director of dining, said.
She said that Cafe 212 received the highest rating a dining facility can get, scoring an A. An inspection score below 13 is an A, from 14-27 is a B, while any number of points greater than that is a C.
The shared kitchen received more violations than Nussbaum & Wu, a popular café on 113th Street that was closed for a day last week with 59 violation points.
Dunn said that following the inspection, she and the dining staff took steps to reach compliance with city and state food regulations.
“Steps that have already been implemented include moving the health and safety oversight of the kitchen completely under my direction; fixing facility malfunctions including replacing a drain; and replacing some UEM staff, in part due to their inability to meet the new inspection standards,” Dunn wrote in an email.
This is the highest number of violations Cafe 212 has received in recent years. Last year it scored only eight points and the year before that 17.
Columbia students said the results of the health inspection got them thinking about University dining facilities.
“I feel like there should be no violations on this campus whatsoever,” Iesha Wadala, a student of the Mailman School of Public Health, said. “Where does the tuition go?”
Ganiatu Afolabi, CC ’12, said she was surprised that it was Cafe 212 that scored the lowest.
“I’d probably think that Cafe 212 is the cleanest,” Afolabi said, explaining that she often judges how sanitary an establishment is by how clean it seems to be. “I’m not surprised that Columbia has these problems, but I am surprised that it’s 212.”
Lesedi Mbatha, BC ’12, on the other hand, wasn’t surprised by the violations at all.
“The smell there is pretty questionable,” Mbatha said. “I never trusted any place on campus.”
After receiving this low score, the shared kitchen will continue to be inspected by the Department of Health until the score falls below 28 points.
“We fully expect this facility to receive an A at its next inspection (even if it was tomorrow), and will operate at the standard of dining’s other units,” Dunn said, noting that John Jay received 12 points, Blue Java five, and Ferris Booth zero.
Afolabi, however, said she’d just rather not know what happens in any of the kitchens at University dining facilities.
“What are your options if you have a meal plan—you’d rather not know. You have to eat there anyway,” she said, explaining that she saw a picture of a friend with a caterpillar at Ferris. “Sometimes you can peek in the back where they’re cleaning [at John Jay] but I’d rather not look.”
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