UPTOWN — After Sun Wah BBQ was briefly shut down because of a rat infestation, among other health code violations, the popular Chinese restaurant is back to serving customers, an owner confirmed Wednesday.
"I told a previous reporter we are relaxed because we are relaxed people," co-owner Kelly Cheng told DNAinfo Chicago Wednesday. "Our people didn't clean the way they should have. But everything they've asked us to do, we have fixed. The health department gave us a clean bill of health."
Uptown's Hong Kong-style barbecue joint, 5039 N. Broadway, reopened Tuesday afternoon, Cheng said. It was shut down Monday after the Chicago Department of Health received a complaint from a customer who saw a rat in the restaurant near the bar, city records show.
But Cheng was quick to say that there are "zero rodents in [the] building."
She blamed construction and sewer work for the inspector's findings: approximately 250 rat droppings found on top of food containers and storage racks as well as "gnaw marks" in various bags of rice, dried fish and bulk food items, according to the city's report.
"I'm sure the construction had something to do with the rodents running amuck in the neighborhood and alleys."
She added: "When it's cold, [rodents] want to come inside. It's because they're fixing the sewer on Argyle [Street]. The [rodents] came out because their regular homes got disturbed."
In addition to rat droppings, an inspector Monday found 10 or more mice droppings everywhere from under a fish tank to inside the women's bathroom on the first floor. The report also said an inspector witnessed employees cleaning dirty floors with cleaning product that splashed directly on partially cooked whole pigs, which we hanging from the ceiling down to about 3-4 inches from the floor.
When asked if she was familiar with the incident, Cheng said a "raw, uncut pig was hung a little lower than the health department liked."
"They were not using cleaning solution, they were using water," she said. "They saw water splashing, and the inspector didn't like that."
The report said an inspector found no hot water in the sinks of the men's and women's bathrooms. But Cheng said they've "always had hot water."
The city inspector also found open containers of cooked food on the floor of the walk-in cooler and food kept at potentially hazardous improper temperatures, a citation the restaurant has received multiple times, according to city data.
Sun Wah BBQ has failed health inspections at least eight times since November 2010, according to city data.
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