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Don't blame the NYPD; it's not their job to police the city's salad bars. (John Del Signore/Gothamist)
Workers at the DUMBO grocery store Foragers spent about a week installing what was supposed to be a vastly improved salad bar at the Front Street location. It finally debuted last Friday, but it looks like they've decided not to install the customary plastic shield that protects consumers from strangers' unhygienic snot spray. The city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene directed our questions to the state's Department of Agriculture and Markets, so here's Section 271-8.2 about salad bars from the state's regulations for retail food stores:
(a) Food shields or sneeze guards must be of the canopy type and must completely cover the display/dispensing unit from above. Such shields shall be mounted so as to intercept a direct line between the customer's mouth and the food display area at the customer use position. Width of the salad bar unit should be restricted to limit reaching over food product.
Neither a manager nor an employee at Foragers could say whether a sneeze guard is imminent, and we seemed to be the only customers revolted by this unsanitary state of affairs. But maybe the other customers are right to be apathetic, because even with a sneeze guard, terrible, disgusting things can happen to salad bars—like the time that deranged man was arrested for spraying midtown salad bars with a mixture of... well, it's your call if you want to know the rest. You've been warned.
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I pretty much refrain from eating at any public buffet-style setup. It just seems like a recipe for intestinal illness to me. Also, because ewwww.
Exactly! Buffets suck!
the officer ordered the man to drop the fork and was subsequently shot (taser or bullet...you decide)
Slow news day? Whatever happened to the slow elevator at Fairway?
Elevator?? I thought it was an escalator and I think it's at Whole food not Fairway or maybe Trader Joe.
I managed a bakery/cafe in Park Slope when I was in college -- this is totally a Dept. of Health issue and is violation worthy of a summons. Someone can report them to 311.
Also, that set-up should be 2-sided. No idea how tall that guy is, but for someone like me (5'2") to reach that last row... I mean, the surrounding area is clean in the photo, but how long will it really stay that way? No to mention, do you want me (or anyone else) leaning over the first 2 rows?
I remember seeing exactly this setup with a man leaning over to get to the food on the other side, and something dropping from his short sleeved armpit.
I think it was a clump of his Baking Soda Deodorant that fell. Never again...
Reminds of that episode where Peter Griffin is an actual Sneeze Guard at a salad bar.
I can't think about salad bars without also thinking of little kids picking their noses and sticking their fingers in the food.
Not that adults don't do that too, of course.
I thought you had to have three of anything to make it a trend.
Not. News.
Don't you understand? The people who shop there are too wealthy to get sick.
Newsflash: "Gothamist is a website about New York." If you want news, go to a newspaper website.
The real crime with salad bars is $6+ per lb for lettuce + tomato, etc. The cost of 'convenience is way too high.
I bring my own salad to work 1-2 times a week. It's healthier, cheaper and faster (no 10 minute lunch time check out lines). The only snot (or worse) I eat is my own. Never pay full retail for someone else's effluent.
Also FYI, 'spring mix' and most mixed salads are a joke. There is always one type of leaf about to go bad in the bag. Wholesalers can't get all the different types in the door at the same time. If you buy them, you should be prepared to eat it in 24 hrs, or be ready for a mouthful of brown decaying sludge.
yeah. because the sneeze guard is really gonna save you from unsanitary conditions.
are you kidding me? do you people live in nyc? do you ride the subway? do you have an idea how many pathogens you're coming into contact with every minute? and you're worried about a sneeze guard?
Whoa.
That's not good. Sure, we can't be too sure that the food we are about to eat is prepared in safe working conditions, but at least the ignorance helps me sleep at night.
This is out in the open. A lot more can happen than just having someone sneezing on it.
Just more reason to pick up that cliff bar instead.
Stay awake. Clif bars were part of the peanut recall:
http://www.clifbar.com/voluntary-recall/
Imagining all that food without a sneeze guard will probably contribute to my weight loss program.
"Try the Long Island dressing!"
Sneeze guards available at www.englishmfg.com