By Karen Gleason
A popular local chicken restaurant was shut down by the city this past week but re-opened quickly after its owner remedied identified problems, city officials said.
Karen Oliver, the city’s interim chief building official, told the 830 Times Friday the city began its investigation of the restaurant after receiving citizen complaints of sewage coming from the establishment and running down adjacent streets.
“This is not an isolated incident in the city. The city actually does not have a grease trap ordinance regulating the service establishments, and that is something that we’re working on,” Oliver said.
“So this is not an isolated incident; this is just one that we have received many complaints from the citizens on because of the inadequate size of (the restaurant’s) grease trap, and that is actually causing sewage to surface on the ground and enter into the neighborhood,” Oliver said.
Oliver identified the restaurant the city has received complaints about as Golden Chick, 501 Veterans Blvd.
Asked about the nature of the complaints the city has received about the business, Oliver said, “That the grease trap is overflowing in the drive-thru, and that effluent has traveled down into the neighboring community, and it’s outside of driveways and it has reached the streets. When people go and get in their cars and leave their driveways, they’re going through sewage from Golden Chick, so they are complaining about it.”
Oliver said the city began addressing the problem by contacting the property owner and working with him to resolve the issue. She identified the owner of the restaurant as Rick Isenhour.
“We are working with him. His grease trap is extremely undersized for the type and amount of business that he’s doing, so we’re working with him to ‘pump and haul’ until he can get in a properly sized grease trap for his business,” she said.
“I believe Mr. Isenhour recognizes the seriousness of the situation, and he is working with us to come into compliance,” Oliver said.
Oliver said Isenhour has resolved the grease trap problem, at least for now, and “he has pumped it out and the sewage is off the ground, so he has made great strides.”
“He will have to pump and haul until he can install the correct size because it won’t last a day; it’s that undersized,” she said.
“This isn’t fryer grease. That goes into something we call a ‘grease pig.’ This is just grease that accumulates on the equipment from their washing and their hand sinks, different things like that,” she added.
On Friday morning, Oliver said Golden Chick remained closed for another issue.
“They don’t have a functioning employee hand sink, and they scored below a 70 (on their inspection). They made a 64. We’re working with them, and their plumber was ordering a part. If the plumber can get out there and get that hand sink functioning, they will come out today and do a re-inspection and hopefully get him up and operating. We don’t want to keep him closed down, but you have to meet minimum standards, which is you have to have an employee hand sink functioning, readily accessible to the employees so they can wash their hands. That’s a minimum state standard,” Oliver said.
City Public Works Director Alberto Quintanilla said later Friday city health inspectors conducted a follow-up investigation after they were notified the necessary repairs had been made at Golden Chick. The restaurant was allowed to re-open about 2 p.m. Friday, Quintanilla said.
Isenhour, reached by phone Saturday, said the restaurant is on the verge on undergoing a major renovation, inside and out, and said he believed the problems at the site were due to the heavy volume load done by the business.
“Our volume is up significantly. The restaurant has been there 33 years, and since COVID hit, we’ve been doing the biggest volume the store has ever done. The grease trap in ground had leaked out into the parking lot and onto the street, and the city called and asked us to close, which we did, and then I paid $1,000 to get a truck to come out of San Antonio to purge it, and we re-opened,” Isenhour told the 830 Times.
“It wasn’t anything hygiene related, as we get (the grease trap) serviced monthly. It’s just that we’ve been crazy busy,” he added.
Isenhour called his staff at Golden Chick “the best workers in the world” and pointed out that everyone remained on staff during the pandemic without any loss in hours.
He said he hopes the Golden Chick renovation will begin in early July.
