The owner of a well-known York café chain says he has tightened up procedures and complied with all the recommendations given to him by council environmental health officers.
The changes follow Lucky Days in Church Street gaining its second zero-star rating in the past year - meaning ‘urgent improvement necessary’ - after an inspection on June 28.
York’s other Lucky Days in Parliament Street and Low Petergate both have food hygiene ratings of five-stars, as has the Lucky Days in Albion Place, Leeds, which means ‘very good'.
The Lucky Days in Church Street also received a zero following a visit from City of York Council inspectors last December.
Business owner Christopher Holder told the Press: “One zero to another zero, doesn't mean we have been operating anywhere near this level between the visits.
“Following us having no hot water on the first visit we closed for two weeks to have a new boiler installed and then had a re-visit signed off to say everything was up to standard by the EHO (environmental health officer).”
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“This visit, we indeed had some Is to dot and Ts to cross and procedures to tighten up which have all been completed.
“Yes, there were some minor discretions but some we disputed like losing points because the chefs were wearing T-shirts with aprons instead of chef jackets, which is fine, but we just had not logged this in our files.”
Chris continued: “We have now subsequently had a visit from the EHO confirming that all their recommendations were complied with.
“Following the visit, we have fully updated our food safety management systems at all our sites to ensure updated procedures have been logged.
“We have paid to have a re-scoring which we hope will be happening this week and expect this will bring us up to the five-star standard achieved in our other three restaurants.”
City of York Council has declined to release its food hygiene report on Lucky Days in Church Street.
A statement to the Press said this could prejudice its ability to “enforce the provisions of the Food Safety Act 1990 which will inhibit the council’s legal obligation to protect the public” should it decide to take any legal action.
However, the Food Standards Agency has posted on its website that “urgent improvement is necessary” concerning hygienic food handling, “major improvements necessary” concerning management of food safety, but the cleanliness and condition of facilities and the building was “generally satisfactory".
The ratings come as Lucky Days continues to receive much praise, with some criticism, on Tripadvisor, which gives it four-stars overall, making it 210th out of 586 York restaurants.
Out of 1,416 reviews listed, 674 rated the venue excellent, 343 said very good, 148 said average, 109 said poor and 119 said terrible.
Recent comments included “excellent food and service” and “slow service but tasty".
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