Pittsburgh Athletic Association Restaurant Will Reopen After Health Dept. Inspection
OAKLAND (KDKA) – The Pittsburgh Athletic Association restaurant will reopen after health inspectors had earlier ordered the eatery to close down.
It's been an iconic club in Oakland since 1908.
But earlier Friday it was announced the restaurant at the Pittsburgh Athletic Association has been ordered to close.
The County Health Department said conditions were so bad, it's a danger to the public. They said it was dirty, unsanitary and infested with roaches.
However, the health department announced Friday evening that the restaurant passed a follow-up inspection and will be able to reopen this weekend.
Earlier the health department says it had given the club three chances to fix the problems, but they failed to do it.
"We don't frequently close down facilities, but in this case, these are very serious violations," said Jim Thompson with the Allegheny County Health Department at the time. "We've seen no progress in correcting these violations for at least two weeks."
So what were the violations? The inspection report cited the PAA for bad sanitation. They found a "deli slicer with food debris stuck to the blade."
The reason? They say there's no hot water in the building to clean it.
KDKA looked around the building Friday afternoon and found that the water was only tepid, not hot. But there's something else more disturbing: roaches. The health department cited them for a roach infestation. We found a few dead ones lying at the entrance to the kitchen.
"We found a significant pest infestation," said Thompson. "And we found food that was being held at temperatures which encouraged the growth of bacteria, which could lead to food borne illness."
The PAA released a statement saying it had corrected all of the issues and was back to being fully operational in a statement.
"Yesterday, on August 13, 2015, the Allegheny County Health Department, upon inspection, temporarily closed the Pittsburgh Athletic Association (PAA) due to issues related to the facility's boiler, including the temporary inability to provide hot water throughout the Clubhouse. All conditions, including related issues in the Clubhouse restaurant, have been addressed and corrected by the PAA."
But they wonder how it came to this.
"It's upsetting to me, the fact that a facility such as this can allow these types of violations to continue for this long," said Thompson.
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