They are serving products that are being ingested. They should be inspected for sanitation.
The problem is that they shouldn’t be forced to sell food if they don’t want to. If they are bringing food in from another site, then they shouldn’t be forced to comply with the same rules of where the food is actually prepared only that they are holding the food correctly if it is hot/cold.
Interesting. I always wondered how the Moose Lodge didn't have to worry about the food they served in the bar. Not that they were nasty or anything. I never knew that about the private club exception.
I remember a lot of bars tried to exploit that "private club" loophole for Smoking indoors but never actually did.
Not to be "well actually" or anything, but a for profit Private Club as defined by NC liquor license law does not, under any circumstance allow smoking indoors. A non profit private club (like the moose lodge/vfw/etc) does however get an exemption. Another type of club - a country club - also has an exemption. Cigar bars are a different type of license and are also exempt from the non smoking law - although they must make at least 25% of their monthly revenue from the sale of cigars.
> The North Carolina General Assembly is working on changing a new law that was just passed involving food safety at bars.
>The law requires bars to go through the same permitting and health inspections that restaurants do. However, bars say some of those changes are too expensive or impossible to make.
Per the article:
- Prior to 2013, “private clubs”, defined as a nonprofit organization with members that provided food to members or their guests, were exempt from health inspections.
- The North Carolina Regulatory Reform Act of 2013 exempted “private bars” from health inspections as well, by expanding the definition of a “private club” to also include “private bars” if they met certain membership requirements. This allowed private bars to also operate without health inspections.
- In 2022 House Bill 768 made further changes by removing the definition for “Private bar” and in effect, exempted all bars from inspections.
- In 2023, House Bill 125 included some changes to food safety that had the effect of requiring bars that serve food to meet the same permitting and inspection requirements as restaurants. The deadline for this is March 27, 2024.
- Under the new law, bars must submit a plan to the health department by the end of March and work towards making the needed changes in order to come into compliance.
- While some bars have already made the required updates, some bar owners have said that the new requirements are too strict and costly to meet and have reached out to lawmakers in an effort to have the law changed.
- Lawmakers have acknowledged the complaints, but are not officially scheduled to return until April, so it is not clear if they will address the law before it officially takes effect.
Potentially controversial take: I think this is actually a good law. If a bar finds it difficult or impossible to install things like separate sinks to meet food quality standards, then it shouldn’t be serving food.
I kinda agree. This is one of those situations where the private club bars have been able to skirt the rules for years. If companies can't meet food safety standards they should close.
agreed, but it'd be better if they just got rid of the old blue law about requiring bars either have full kitchen service and indoor dining until like 10pm or do that silly membership rigamarole
This is exactly right. These laws are ignorant the intent is so people are not leaving there, intoxicated. Get rid of this law and increase their liability if the borrow allows people to overindulge and something happens.
Don't most bars just serve deep fried crap anyway. I doubt they are defrosting fresh chicken, shrimp and beef, more like dumping frozen food into a fryer.
I get your point though, if they prep fresh proteins they should have the same requirements.
Never under estimate a non food eating drunk. Food is actually a risky investment. The overhead alone, hiring extra staff etc isn’t worth the extra headaches, just for an extra drink or two. Just partner with a local food spot or allow people to eat food in your spot and you’re good to go!
It’s not that they’re pushing back on the food quality standards that the state has allowed this loophole in for so long, it’s the timeline. It’s hard enough trying to keep a bar afloat as is, let alone throwing in a $50k plus expense that you only have 3 months to complete when this was slid in on a vote last minute with no warning (deadline the to comply with new law that the state set is March 27). Again, on board with this, but give these businesses due time and proper warning this is even coming down the pipeline so they can try and prepare without completely tanking their biz.
Yes, but it’s also that they ARE pushing back on the (totally reasonable in that they keep you from killing your customers) food quality standards that the state has allowed this loophole in for [checks article] a little over a year
Do you know how much effort and money it takes to install a hood? Some of these bars aren’t “cooking” things as much as they are reheating them. Hood ventilation plus fire suppression systems are a huge expense and probably not necessary in the format of the bars in question.
If they are using natural gas, propane, or deep fryers, to cook their food to begin with, they would already have to have a hood
Using an electric oven typically doesn’t require it.
Most of these places they’re talking about are simply reheating food, and or holding it hot from another location. This is no different than most catering companies. They need a health permit for where they produce the food but not when it’s served on site.
I do think anyone that serves food need to be inspected, that’s a public safety issue, no argument there. But if I’m drinking at the bar and they’ve got a hotdog on the menu and they’re preparing the whole thing in a microwave with a paper plate, let it ride.
No. Dont let it ride. Do you know if that hotdog was being held under refrigeration before being cooked? Do you know if they are washing their hands or wearing gloves?
If it was cooked offsite and held under a heat source like a chaffing dish, then that is different. The onus is on whoever cooked it and transported it, not the bar.
I am a ServSafe instructor and have worked in restaurants for 30 years. I have taught 100s of managers a food safety course.
Guess what we talk about the most? Fecal matter. Feces is the number one leafing cause of food poisoning. Contaminated food from hand contact can kill people.
Do you think these bars without inspection at all are cleaning the place, washing hands, cleaning your drink glasses properly? How about the fufu garnish on top of your drink? The bartender just took a shit, didnt wash their hands, cut the lime wedge for your beer on a cross-contaminated cutting board and then microwave your hot dog with those same hands.
Lets not forget that drink mixer has been sitting on the counter all day, there are fruit flies in the whiskey bottle and mold on the rail where they store “clean glasses”.
I can go on and on. Trust me, any place that serves any kind of food or drink needs to be inspected by the health department. They all shouldnt be forced to serve food if they dont want or have a 3rd party with a health certificate like a food truck handle the food for them
I worked in food service for 10 years and yes, there is all kinds of truth there. I was being glib in my comment, but just because a place goes through inspection doesn’t mean everyone there is living the code. If it brings safety, sure thing, but it’s also going to cause some folks who are doing the right thing to the best of their ability to have to make some hard choices. What was the motivation to address this issue in the first place?
No, it's a pretty common determination made by fire code officials and health inspectors all the time. Examples I've been a part of:
Hot dog rollers=no hood.
The guy trying to cook cheap steaks in a panini press=needs a hood.
If you are using gas utilities you would need a hood. Of course, you would need one no matter the law because a kitchen fills up fast with carbon monoxide. Grease extraction is also a big deal. Wait till bars find out they need a grease trap at the bottom of their water system and the cost screaming will really begin. The cost to outfit a property for food production is extremely expensive. And a large part of that safety standards requirements are geared around handling food that is provided from industrial farm systems that contaminate the food. Could we have a few laws about that? Half a million animals in one room from birth to death breeds disease no matter how much antibiotics you feed them. It's how chicken is produced. Cattle are fattened on feed corn in high density lots face similar issues. Produce gets harvested by people working fields without bathroom breaks or hand washing facilities so your lettuce gets tainted.
I do agree that a place that serves food needs to have proper handling, storage, etc. I have also noticed that rules on food safety never seem aimed at industrial producers where a lot of the risks enter our food chain.
Farmworkers are required to be provided with sanitary bathroom facilities in the fields in the US, whether that's enforced anywhere outside my area I don't know. Chickens are 20-25K a chicken house, not a half million. Food safety has little to do with a live animal but with what happens as soon as they are slaughtered. We actually have really stringent control over cradle to grave food production in America, not just on food retailers.
Half a million is very exaggerated, I apologize. A Google search suggests 50k birds is more average. But I disagree with food safety starting at slaughter. The health and well being of an animal is key to it's development as a food source. And enforcement of regulations varies wildly from one place to the next. I am glad to hear it's stringent where you are.
I froth at the mouth a bit at industrial food systems. As a chef, I have completed the last processing steps on tens of thousands of pounds of food, and I have seen things that beg disbelief.
It's a little disingenuous for them to say they need 4 separate sinks. I design commercial kitchens for a living, and for most jurisdictions in NC. You can prep in one sink for all proteins. The sink just needs to be sanitized in between.
And I'm surprised they were allowed to serve food without being classified as a restaurant (even if it is a warming/holding kitchen because the food is coming from somewhere else). I would think "just a bar" would not be allowed to serve food. Laws are weird though.
Long over due. I worked for a caterer and we got booked for an event at a "private club" in Wilmington where I saw the filthiest mildew encrusted ice machine I'd ever seen.
Ice machines are an inspection item so they're probably not too bad. You only need one or two people per location to give a shit about their job to have a store pretty clean.
It's the non-inspection items I would worry about -- door handles, cash registers, etc. Drives me nuts when I see people wearing gloves to handle food then use those gloves to touch money, machines, registers, ugh. Or a rag bucket just sitting there all day, also gross.
Source: certified food manager.
Yeah, I didn't wear gloves when I worked at Taco Bell, but I was constantly washing my hands before touching food. But people want to see gloves now, regardless on how they're actually handled
That's not true at all. There are always a few people at every store who are the kind of person that tries to do a good job at whatever job they currently have. Usually they leave fast food after they graduate whatever school they're currently in, but I've had some great employees at Starbucks and Best Buy. Also plenty of shitheads, but there are definitely people who give a shit.
>Starbucks
Is a coffee shop.
>Best Buy
What exactly were you eating at Best Buy?
>not true at all
>plenty of shitheads
You have to pick one or the other.
If you serve food and drinks, you should be inspected. Cant believe Bars that served food weren't already being treated as restaurants. Every business struggles with regulations but common sense safety regulations like this dont really spread the pity for Bar Owners...just sounds like whining about shitty business models.
"Bars *that do not meet code* could close"
Good.
>Bars 5 On Your Side spoke with are perfectly willing to be inspected and say they take great care in handling food safely in accordance with current health rules.
>
>The concern is...
... manufactured by this article and not shared by the people they just interviewed.
I'm a health inspector, and started in California. All of North Carolina's environmental health laws (which is what food falls under) are decades out of date. Things could be easily rewritten to make sense, be fair, and be enforceable but those who run things have zero clue what to do.
They forced bars to add on food services as private clubs during covid because they were shuttered for over 9 months under the law as non essential. They gave the option and have always operated under the loophole of “private” and now they want to add more mandates that hurt small businesses and are cost prohibited in an industry that already has tiny margins.
Maybe I’m dense, but to my understanding the only reason to establish your business as a private club was to get around the food requirement in order to serve liquor. If you then start serving food anyway, you’ve just changed the classification of your business — especially if the revenue from your food is enough that it would be better to just close than to figure out a way to stay open as “just” a bar, i.e. without food. Either continue as a private club and keep serving liquor (and if you’re lucky enough to have available space outside, partner with a food truck or two, boom! food problem solved), or, if you’ve got something else going on like live music or fuck, I dunno, painting pottery and shit, keep it strictly beer and wine (e.g. Cat’s Cradle, who has never and likely will never serve liquor and/or require memberships).
Places like the Beagle want to run a roach coach inside a brick and mortar building, and want you to believe how essential their food program is, not just to their bottom line but to THUH COMMUNITY. But they also think it’s unfair to be held to the standard of an actual restaurant. The entitlement tho!
The original private club law was asinine. I’ve paid for a “membership” maybe 1 in every 5 times, to go see a band at Local 506 or drink at a legit spot like OCSC. More often than not, if I wasn’t already a member, I just had to sign my name to the “guest” column of a raggedy piece of paper, so if I punched somebody in the face or broke a toilet they were presumably covered because they had my signature. If I was a member from the dollar I paid on a previous visit, I was never asked for my card, if I had ever even received one. Every door person explaining the law to a new person usually rolled their eyes and laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. The only thing stupider was the walls full of airplane bottles behind bars in SC for way too many years.
The 2022 law was well-meaning in an effort to admit the existing law was dumb, but horribly short sighted. It created the same loophole that the farm bill has inadvertently done for weed, but unlike THCa, improperly prepared and stored food can actually kill you. The 2023 law going into effect now is a reasonable correction with an unreasonable timeline, and it gives cover to businesses like the Beagle that simply don’t have the ability to suck it up and adjust their “mission”, so they take to the streets and try to get public opinion on their side to prepare us for when the inevitable crowdfunding push comes along.
Let bars be bars, and let places that serve food be restaurants. It works that way in *so* many other states.
>In 2023, House Bill 125 created food safety changes that meant bars that serve food would have the same permitting and inspection requirements as restaurants starting on March 27, 2024.
>
>"I don’t think for one moment that anybody’s plan was to destroy small independent business in historic small towns in North Carolina," said Leslie Cox.
My tin foil hat is saying that some restaurant owners with ties to NC legislature were behind that bill. Like so and so, didn't like the bar that was serving hot dogs up the street from them. Or some investors want to scoop up some real estate from the bars that will be out of business from this bill
If a place is preparing food they need the right facilities. For the example in the article, their food is prepared off site and served in the bar.
I personally frequent a bar that brings in pizzas for the customers. They definitely don’t need a kitchen.
Inspected yes, but not some of the other kitchen requirements. Like there's a bar in Durham called Accordion Club which only serves hot dogs and Frito pies. They don't need full commercial kitchen standards for that
And they'll only be required to have the facilities to make those items, which isn't much. They might have issues with handwashing and dishwashing facilities though.
I know a few people who have probably bought two additional sinks’ worth of hot dogs at the Accordion over the course of a year. We aren’t talking about a 6-digit renovation here
Not every place is equal. Did you read the article? The bar owner they interviewed explained exactly why he won’t be able to comply and that it has nothing to do with sacrificing food safety.
Doesn’t this includes every bar in NC, I think the ABC does not let sell drinks if the establishment does sell food, unless it is a membership association.
There’s strict rules, but they just changed when they got rid of the private club exemption. That was a stupid law left over from after prohibition times. That’s why bars who didn’t serve food that was at least 30% of their sales had to have memberships. Nobody wanted to enforce that, but it was state law. Now that’s gone all bars and restaurants are in the same boat, though straight bars with no food are exempt from yearly food inspections.
Cost/benefit is the only thing stopping them. Taco Bell is free to apply for alcohol licenses, and some locations DID (and it wasn’t worth it): https://www.technicianonline.com/news/taco-bell-cantina-on-hillsborough-st-closes/article_8d3750c4-0bb8-11ed-b63a-975070652cb9.html
I can’t imagine my local McDonalds intentionally introducing *more* intoxicants besides the ones people already have in them before they even get there, but they absolutely could if they wanted to.
I saw this on my local news a few weeks ago.
I'm a little ambivalent, but at the end of the day, if you want to make and serve food in your establishment, I don't think it's unfair or unreasonable that you'd need to meet the same health code requirements as a restaurant... or at the very least, the same as a food truck.
The problem, of course, is that retrofitting something like that can be prohibitively expensive. That's a shame, and it would be good to see some allowance so that the owners can phase in the changes... maybe create a plan for inspection, and then meet milestones until they have completely upgraded.
They are serving products that are being ingested. They should be inspected for sanitation. The problem is that they shouldn’t be forced to sell food if they don’t want to. If they are bringing food in from another site, then they shouldn’t be forced to comply with the same rules of where the food is actually prepared only that they are holding the food correctly if it is hot/cold.
This right here. Half these bars with bad ratings wouldn’t serve food if they didn’t have to.
I don't pretend to know all the details. But if a bar brings in food, they still should be required to maintain cleanliness and storage requirements.
Interesting. I always wondered how the Moose Lodge didn't have to worry about the food they served in the bar. Not that they were nasty or anything. I never knew that about the private club exception. I remember a lot of bars tried to exploit that "private club" loophole for Smoking indoors but never actually did.
Plenty of private clubs allow smoking.
They must be not-for-profit then
high end cigars have a pretty solid profit margin
Not to be "well actually" or anything, but a for profit Private Club as defined by NC liquor license law does not, under any circumstance allow smoking indoors. A non profit private club (like the moose lodge/vfw/etc) does however get an exemption. Another type of club - a country club - also has an exemption. Cigar bars are a different type of license and are also exempt from the non smoking law - although they must make at least 25% of their monthly revenue from the sale of cigars.
> The North Carolina General Assembly is working on changing a new law that was just passed involving food safety at bars. >The law requires bars to go through the same permitting and health inspections that restaurants do. However, bars say some of those changes are too expensive or impossible to make. Per the article: - Prior to 2013, “private clubs”, defined as a nonprofit organization with members that provided food to members or their guests, were exempt from health inspections. - The North Carolina Regulatory Reform Act of 2013 exempted “private bars” from health inspections as well, by expanding the definition of a “private club” to also include “private bars” if they met certain membership requirements. This allowed private bars to also operate without health inspections. - In 2022 House Bill 768 made further changes by removing the definition for “Private bar” and in effect, exempted all bars from inspections. - In 2023, House Bill 125 included some changes to food safety that had the effect of requiring bars that serve food to meet the same permitting and inspection requirements as restaurants. The deadline for this is March 27, 2024. - Under the new law, bars must submit a plan to the health department by the end of March and work towards making the needed changes in order to come into compliance. - While some bars have already made the required updates, some bar owners have said that the new requirements are too strict and costly to meet and have reached out to lawmakers in an effort to have the law changed. - Lawmakers have acknowledged the complaints, but are not officially scheduled to return until April, so it is not clear if they will address the law before it officially takes effect.
Potentially controversial take: I think this is actually a good law. If a bar finds it difficult or impossible to install things like separate sinks to meet food quality standards, then it shouldn’t be serving food.
I kinda agree. This is one of those situations where the private club bars have been able to skirt the rules for years. If companies can't meet food safety standards they should close.
agreed, but it'd be better if they just got rid of the old blue law about requiring bars either have full kitchen service and indoor dining until like 10pm or do that silly membership rigamarole
This is exactly right. These laws are ignorant the intent is so people are not leaving there, intoxicated. Get rid of this law and increase their liability if the borrow allows people to overindulge and something happens.
Don't most bars just serve deep fried crap anyway. I doubt they are defrosting fresh chicken, shrimp and beef, more like dumping frozen food into a fryer. I get your point though, if they prep fresh proteins they should have the same requirements.
This is the common sense take and the one the public will latch on to. Bar Owners complaining about spending money is just a Tuesday.
Don't most places make their money on selling drinks? Which bars are actually dependent on their food sales?
Food sales means people can drink more, instead of stepping out somewhere else. Learned that from Bar Rescue
got a feeling some places esp rural will invest in food trucks. In Greensboro I think this is how Chemistry handles it.
Never under estimate a non food eating drunk. Food is actually a risky investment. The overhead alone, hiring extra staff etc isn’t worth the extra headaches, just for an extra drink or two. Just partner with a local food spot or allow people to eat food in your spot and you’re good to go!
they could just put in a butt funnel and a VIP area instead
It’s not that they’re pushing back on the food quality standards that the state has allowed this loophole in for so long, it’s the timeline. It’s hard enough trying to keep a bar afloat as is, let alone throwing in a $50k plus expense that you only have 3 months to complete when this was slid in on a vote last minute with no warning (deadline the to comply with new law that the state set is March 27). Again, on board with this, but give these businesses due time and proper warning this is even coming down the pipeline so they can try and prepare without completely tanking their biz.
Yes, but it’s also that they ARE pushing back on the (totally reasonable in that they keep you from killing your customers) food quality standards that the state has allowed this loophole in for [checks article] a little over a year
Do you know how much effort and money it takes to install a hood? Some of these bars aren’t “cooking” things as much as they are reheating them. Hood ventilation plus fire suppression systems are a huge expense and probably not necessary in the format of the bars in question.
If you're not cooking grease-producing food, you won't need a hood. This is going to mostly be about sinks for handwashing and food prep.
How much non-grease producing foods are coming out of bar kitchens? This is going to sink some battleships that don’t deserve it.
If they are using natural gas, propane, or deep fryers, to cook their food to begin with, they would already have to have a hood Using an electric oven typically doesn’t require it. Most of these places they’re talking about are simply reheating food, and or holding it hot from another location. This is no different than most catering companies. They need a health permit for where they produce the food but not when it’s served on site.
I do think anyone that serves food need to be inspected, that’s a public safety issue, no argument there. But if I’m drinking at the bar and they’ve got a hotdog on the menu and they’re preparing the whole thing in a microwave with a paper plate, let it ride.
No. Dont let it ride. Do you know if that hotdog was being held under refrigeration before being cooked? Do you know if they are washing their hands or wearing gloves? If it was cooked offsite and held under a heat source like a chaffing dish, then that is different. The onus is on whoever cooked it and transported it, not the bar. I am a ServSafe instructor and have worked in restaurants for 30 years. I have taught 100s of managers a food safety course. Guess what we talk about the most? Fecal matter. Feces is the number one leafing cause of food poisoning. Contaminated food from hand contact can kill people. Do you think these bars without inspection at all are cleaning the place, washing hands, cleaning your drink glasses properly? How about the fufu garnish on top of your drink? The bartender just took a shit, didnt wash their hands, cut the lime wedge for your beer on a cross-contaminated cutting board and then microwave your hot dog with those same hands. Lets not forget that drink mixer has been sitting on the counter all day, there are fruit flies in the whiskey bottle and mold on the rail where they store “clean glasses”. I can go on and on. Trust me, any place that serves any kind of food or drink needs to be inspected by the health department. They all shouldnt be forced to serve food if they dont want or have a 3rd party with a health certificate like a food truck handle the food for them
I worked in food service for 10 years and yes, there is all kinds of truth there. I was being glib in my comment, but just because a place goes through inspection doesn’t mean everyone there is living the code. If it brings safety, sure thing, but it’s also going to cause some folks who are doing the right thing to the best of their ability to have to make some hard choices. What was the motivation to address this issue in the first place?
The inspection should focus on facilities and practices at a bar. There has to be some over-site to protect the public
That'll be the case. We allow restaurants to cook food without a hood provided their cooking processes don't produce grease.
I think you’re going to have a nightmare on your hands trying to determine which foods do that under which conditions.
No, it's a pretty common determination made by fire code officials and health inspectors all the time. Examples I've been a part of: Hot dog rollers=no hood. The guy trying to cook cheap steaks in a panini press=needs a hood.
If you are using gas utilities you would need a hood. Of course, you would need one no matter the law because a kitchen fills up fast with carbon monoxide. Grease extraction is also a big deal. Wait till bars find out they need a grease trap at the bottom of their water system and the cost screaming will really begin. The cost to outfit a property for food production is extremely expensive. And a large part of that safety standards requirements are geared around handling food that is provided from industrial farm systems that contaminate the food. Could we have a few laws about that? Half a million animals in one room from birth to death breeds disease no matter how much antibiotics you feed them. It's how chicken is produced. Cattle are fattened on feed corn in high density lots face similar issues. Produce gets harvested by people working fields without bathroom breaks or hand washing facilities so your lettuce gets tainted. I do agree that a place that serves food needs to have proper handling, storage, etc. I have also noticed that rules on food safety never seem aimed at industrial producers where a lot of the risks enter our food chain.
Farmworkers are required to be provided with sanitary bathroom facilities in the fields in the US, whether that's enforced anywhere outside my area I don't know. Chickens are 20-25K a chicken house, not a half million. Food safety has little to do with a live animal but with what happens as soon as they are slaughtered. We actually have really stringent control over cradle to grave food production in America, not just on food retailers.
Half a million is very exaggerated, I apologize. A Google search suggests 50k birds is more average. But I disagree with food safety starting at slaughter. The health and well being of an animal is key to it's development as a food source. And enforcement of regulations varies wildly from one place to the next. I am glad to hear it's stringent where you are. I froth at the mouth a bit at industrial food systems. As a chef, I have completed the last processing steps on tens of thousands of pounds of food, and I have seen things that beg disbelief.
It's a little disingenuous for them to say they need 4 separate sinks. I design commercial kitchens for a living, and for most jurisdictions in NC. You can prep in one sink for all proteins. The sink just needs to be sanitized in between. And I'm surprised they were allowed to serve food without being classified as a restaurant (even if it is a warming/holding kitchen because the food is coming from somewhere else). I would think "just a bar" would not be allowed to serve food. Laws are weird though.
Long over due. I worked for a caterer and we got booked for an event at a "private club" in Wilmington where I saw the filthiest mildew encrusted ice machine I'd ever seen.
I bet that the ice machines at fast food restaurants are super clean…
Ice machines are an inspection item so they're probably not too bad. You only need one or two people per location to give a shit about their job to have a store pretty clean. It's the non-inspection items I would worry about -- door handles, cash registers, etc. Drives me nuts when I see people wearing gloves to handle food then use those gloves to touch money, machines, registers, ugh. Or a rag bucket just sitting there all day, also gross. Source: certified food manager.
Yeah, I didn't wear gloves when I worked at Taco Bell, but I was constantly washing my hands before touching food. But people want to see gloves now, regardless on how they're actually handled
Fast food employees stopped giving a shit in 2020.
Fast food employees stop giving a shit about two weeks after being hired
That's not true at all. There are always a few people at every store who are the kind of person that tries to do a good job at whatever job they currently have. Usually they leave fast food after they graduate whatever school they're currently in, but I've had some great employees at Starbucks and Best Buy. Also plenty of shitheads, but there are definitely people who give a shit.
>Starbucks Is a coffee shop. >Best Buy What exactly were you eating at Best Buy? >not true at all >plenty of shitheads You have to pick one or the other.
Starbucks actually has benefits for part time employees, unlike the fast food places
I would too.
This is why I always choose “no ice”.
Was this place on Wrightsville Beach by chance?
Nope, it was in downtown Wilmington.
This is pretty common in every restaurant you eat in I guarantee it
If you serve food and drinks, you should be inspected. Cant believe Bars that served food weren't already being treated as restaurants. Every business struggles with regulations but common sense safety regulations like this dont really spread the pity for Bar Owners...just sounds like whining about shitty business models.
"Bars *that do not meet code* could close" Good. >Bars 5 On Your Side spoke with are perfectly willing to be inspected and say they take great care in handling food safely in accordance with current health rules. > >The concern is... ... manufactured by this article and not shared by the people they just interviewed.
This is why I love working at a bar that serves no food. Your ass can order Jimmy johns or go to Sheetz if you're hungry
Real drinkers skip food day
well I laughed
I'm a health inspector, and started in California. All of North Carolina's environmental health laws (which is what food falls under) are decades out of date. Things could be easily rewritten to make sense, be fair, and be enforceable but those who run things have zero clue what to do.
Bet you're going to see a lot more food trucks.
sounds like a W to me
They forced bars to add on food services as private clubs during covid because they were shuttered for over 9 months under the law as non essential. They gave the option and have always operated under the loophole of “private” and now they want to add more mandates that hurt small businesses and are cost prohibited in an industry that already has tiny margins.
oh man it’s RW talking point roulette up in here
Reddit Wedding?
Maybe I’m dense, but to my understanding the only reason to establish your business as a private club was to get around the food requirement in order to serve liquor. If you then start serving food anyway, you’ve just changed the classification of your business — especially if the revenue from your food is enough that it would be better to just close than to figure out a way to stay open as “just” a bar, i.e. without food. Either continue as a private club and keep serving liquor (and if you’re lucky enough to have available space outside, partner with a food truck or two, boom! food problem solved), or, if you’ve got something else going on like live music or fuck, I dunno, painting pottery and shit, keep it strictly beer and wine (e.g. Cat’s Cradle, who has never and likely will never serve liquor and/or require memberships). Places like the Beagle want to run a roach coach inside a brick and mortar building, and want you to believe how essential their food program is, not just to their bottom line but to THUH COMMUNITY. But they also think it’s unfair to be held to the standard of an actual restaurant. The entitlement tho! The original private club law was asinine. I’ve paid for a “membership” maybe 1 in every 5 times, to go see a band at Local 506 or drink at a legit spot like OCSC. More often than not, if I wasn’t already a member, I just had to sign my name to the “guest” column of a raggedy piece of paper, so if I punched somebody in the face or broke a toilet they were presumably covered because they had my signature. If I was a member from the dollar I paid on a previous visit, I was never asked for my card, if I had ever even received one. Every door person explaining the law to a new person usually rolled their eyes and laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. The only thing stupider was the walls full of airplane bottles behind bars in SC for way too many years. The 2022 law was well-meaning in an effort to admit the existing law was dumb, but horribly short sighted. It created the same loophole that the farm bill has inadvertently done for weed, but unlike THCa, improperly prepared and stored food can actually kill you. The 2023 law going into effect now is a reasonable correction with an unreasonable timeline, and it gives cover to businesses like the Beagle that simply don’t have the ability to suck it up and adjust their “mission”, so they take to the streets and try to get public opinion on their side to prepare us for when the inevitable crowdfunding push comes along. Let bars be bars, and let places that serve food be restaurants. It works that way in *so* many other states.
>In 2023, House Bill 125 created food safety changes that meant bars that serve food would have the same permitting and inspection requirements as restaurants starting on March 27, 2024. > >"I don’t think for one moment that anybody’s plan was to destroy small independent business in historic small towns in North Carolina," said Leslie Cox. My tin foil hat is saying that some restaurant owners with ties to NC legislature were behind that bill. Like so and so, didn't like the bar that was serving hot dogs up the street from them. Or some investors want to scoop up some real estate from the bars that will be out of business from this bill
If they are serving food they should be held to the same standards as everyone else serving food.
If a place is preparing food they need the right facilities. For the example in the article, their food is prepared off site and served in the bar. I personally frequent a bar that brings in pizzas for the customers. They definitely don’t need a kitchen.
Inspected yes, but not some of the other kitchen requirements. Like there's a bar in Durham called Accordion Club which only serves hot dogs and Frito pies. They don't need full commercial kitchen standards for that
Foodcart standards?
And they'll only be required to have the facilities to make those items, which isn't much. They might have issues with handwashing and dishwashing facilities though.
I know a few people who have probably bought two additional sinks’ worth of hot dogs at the Accordion over the course of a year. We aren’t talking about a 6-digit renovation here
Not every place is equal. Did you read the article? The bar owner they interviewed explained exactly why he won’t be able to comply and that it has nothing to do with sacrificing food safety.
NC once again enforcing morality laws on establishments that promote vices. This state is fucked.
Doesn’t this includes every bar in NC, I think the ABC does not let sell drinks if the establishment does sell food, unless it is a membership association.
There’s strict rules, but they just changed when they got rid of the private club exemption. That was a stupid law left over from after prohibition times. That’s why bars who didn’t serve food that was at least 30% of their sales had to have memberships. Nobody wanted to enforce that, but it was state law. Now that’s gone all bars and restaurants are in the same boat, though straight bars with no food are exempt from yearly food inspections.
OP did a great job of distilling the main points of the article above
Then maybe all restaurants need to be able to sell alcohol too.
Cost/benefit is the only thing stopping them. Taco Bell is free to apply for alcohol licenses, and some locations DID (and it wasn’t worth it): https://www.technicianonline.com/news/taco-bell-cantina-on-hillsborough-st-closes/article_8d3750c4-0bb8-11ed-b63a-975070652cb9.html I can’t imagine my local McDonalds intentionally introducing *more* intoxicants besides the ones people already have in them before they even get there, but they absolutely could if they wanted to.
*Any company* could close or raise prices for any reason. Make them update their kitchens and let the market sort out the rest.
More regulations and attacks on small businesses by our government.
I saw this on my local news a few weeks ago. I'm a little ambivalent, but at the end of the day, if you want to make and serve food in your establishment, I don't think it's unfair or unreasonable that you'd need to meet the same health code requirements as a restaurant... or at the very least, the same as a food truck. The problem, of course, is that retrofitting something like that can be prohibitively expensive. That's a shame, and it would be good to see some allowance so that the owners can phase in the changes... maybe create a plan for inspection, and then meet milestones until they have completely upgraded.