16 health code violations brings an ‘F’ on Restaurant Report Card for Argyll Whisky Beer

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DENVER — This month marks two years since our Restaurant Report Card series first went on the air.

And in that time, we’ve exposed hundreds of establishments that failed the health department’s inspections as well as “A+” winners.

This week’s restaurants:

Argyll Whisky Beer gets an “F” with 16 critical violations in its July 2015 and January 2016 inspections. The health inspector noted the following:

Dead mouse in a trap
20-40 rodent droppings
Booster seats, napkins and trash bags in a sink that was supposed to be used for handwashing

The general manager said, “The Argyll management was made aware of the specific issues during the inspection and took immediate action to resolve each one.”

Argyll is at 1035 East 17th Avenue in Denver.

Olive and Finch earned our second “F” this week for 13 critical violations in July 2015 and January 2016 inspections.

Among the violations:

Flies landing on clean plates and cutting boards
Employees touching ready-to-eat food with bare hands, rather than wearing gloves as required
Roasted vegetables were held at an unsafe temperature and that can make you sick
No sanitizer on the cook line during active food handling

The restaurant located at 1552 East 17th Avenue in Denver provided FOX31 Denver this statement: “We are working hard every day at putting systems in place to be compliant with the standards of the health department.”

Hooray for Quiznos at 14715 West 64th Avenue in Arvada. It gets an “A” for back-to-back perfect inspections. And this is the second time this particular sandwich shop has aced our report card.

How restaurants appear on our Report Card

Restaurant Report Card airs on FOX31 Denver News at 9 each Friday night and it features health inspections in the city and county of Denver, Jefferson County, Weld County and restaurants under the jurisdiction of the Tri-County Health Department. The Tri-County Health Department includes Adams, Arapahoe and Douglas counties.

An inspection is a “snapshot” of what is happening during the day and time of the inspection. On any given day, a restaurant could have more or fewer violations than noted in an inspection. Also, at the time of an inspection, violations are recorded and can be corrected prior to the inspector leaving the restaurant. If violations are not corrected, a follow-up inspection is scheduled.

The criteria FOX31 Denver uses to give a restaurant a failing grade includes the evaluation of two unannounced inspections by county health inspectors. A failing restaurant must have five critical violations on their most recent regular inspection and five critical violations on the previous regular inspection. Health inspectors may conduct critical or follow-up inspections, due to the number of critical violations found during a regular inspection. Those inspections may also be considered for our reports. We recognize restaurants with two perfect regular inspections in a row by awarding them an A.