Sacramento County health inspectors slapped a red placard on Falafel & Pizza, a restaurant at 8484 Florin Road, after finding 35 German cockroaches crawling through the facility, including one carrying an egg sack as it scurried across a food-prep table. During the same visit, an inspector watched an employee kill a live cockroach with a napkin while wearing gloves, then go right back to cooking without changing them.
The inspection took place on Wednesday, October 7, according to The Sacramento Bee, which reported the findings. Inspectors documented two violations at the restaurant, and beyond the roach spotted on the prep table, they found multi-species cockroaches stuck to a sticky trap in the employee break room and watched others scatter across the walls, the newspaper reported.
What a Red Placard Actually Means
A red placard requires a facility to close, signaling what the county defines as an imminent danger to public health and safety, and it suspends a restaurant's health permit until the violations are corrected, per the Bee's report. Major vermin contamination is specifically listed as one of the conditions that can trigger that designation. By contrast, a yellow placard signals two or more major violations that are typically corrected or mitigated on the spot during the inspection, while a green placard simply means a restaurant passed.
Falafel & Pizza had not been reinspected as of Thursday, October 8, the newspaper reported, and no manager was on site when a Bee reporter visited the restaurant. The outlet said it contacted Falafel & Pizza for comment.
How the Restaurant Compares Countywide
The violations at Falafel & Pizza land in rare territory. Sacramento County performs roughly 14,000 food facility inspections a year, and about 97% of establishments pass, according to county spokesman Ken Casparis, cited in the Bee's reporting. Casparis said approximately 1% of inspections result in a closure, which puts this case well outside the norm for the county's food safety program. The inspection falls within a countywide review window that ran from Thursday, October 1 through Thursday, October 8.
State law requires food facilities to operate in a way that prevents the entrance and harborage of animals, birds, and vermin, including rodents and insects, and mandates that premises be kept free of vermin, according to the California Health and Safety Code. Consumers who want to report suspected violations at a restaurant can file a complaint with their local environmental health department, which is responsible for the initial investigation of such complaints, per the California Department of Public Health.
The restaurant had yet to be reinspected as of Thursday, October 8.
