Thatcher’s Responds to Health Inspection Score

Thatcher’s Barbeque and Grill owner, John Thatcher posted a response to the Health Inspection score of a 54 the restaurant recently on Facebook. The post has been shared over 600 times.

From the post:

“We have proudly served the North Georgia area with our food for the past 9 1/2 years. During this time we have accomplished a lot for being a small family owned business without previous experience in food service. It goes without saying we’ve learned a lot. Through it all, we have enjoyed a great following and also a solid health grading throughout all our locations. Twice we have scored a 100 which is unheard of in a bbq concept. We have always welcomed anyone to look inside our kitchen by where we can we’ve made our kitchen design an open one. Summerville’s food prep area can be easily viewed through the windows on the side of the building. Ringgold you can look straight in through the window we installed and see your food prepared in front of you like a Japanese steak house. We just don’t flip our utensils and do an egg trick lol.
Another thing we have learned is that inspectors are human. They also enforce the health code differently in all four communities we serve. Rules are rules but are open to interpretation and judgement. We found recently that no matter how long we’ve done things a certain way, an inspector will come along and have a different opinion. We also found that while some inspectors use judgement, others check boxes. Our most recent inspection in Summerville was an example of this. While we understand we made a few mistakes with this inspection, our total score was in no way reflective of our true ability nor our current state of food safety after a mad rush. We were marked off for our dish system not being sanitary. We called our machine company and they discovered that incorrect test strips were used by our personnel and that our machine indeed was within state policy. Our cooler was tagged as faulty but our repair personnel discovered it indeed was working properly. During a rush the door was left slightly ajar causing it to be out of temp for a very short time. When sealed up it immediately came back down in temp. With all of the 🤢 faces being distributed and people saying that we are going to kill people by some on this wonderful thing called social media, it is just not right for me to stand idly by and let opinions fly without speaking out for our hard working staff that put their heart and soul into serving our gracious loyal customers.
Nitpicked is the word to best describe how we feel.