Black Jax Bar closed for a day after inspector finds 11 violations

Black Jax Bar & Grill, 8040 Perry Highway, inside the Quality Inn & Suites, was recently closed by the Erie County Department of Health following an inspection that found five critical and six noncritical violations of the food code, including backed-up sewage.

The inspection report, written Aug. 16, read "Drains in kitchen are backed up. Visibly dirty water pooling on floors as well and discharging from pipes under pressure from dishwasher use. Foul smelling odor present throughout."

The department took the rare action of sending a letter of violation to "applicant" Dilip Patel and alerting Summit Township to the plumbing issue, stating "Operator failed to notify the (health department) of an imminent health hazard." The letter also stated, "Operator failed to cease operations during an existing imminent health hazard."

The sewage problem was repaired within 24 hours, according to Breanna Adams, director of environmental health services at the department of health. She said Black Jax was allowed to reopen Aug. 17, but management still has a lot of work to do.

Neither management of Black Jax nor Quality Inn & Suites responded to several requests for comment on the inspection report.

In addition to the sewage backup, the report included specific amounts of time to correct remaining violations still present Friday. Those included:

The Aug. 16 inspection was conducted after the health department received complaints from the public. The restaurant, while open, is still in violation of the health code until all the violations are reinspected. If this doesn't happen in a timely fashion, the restaurant could be closed again.

On its Facebook page, Black Jax Bar & Grill had posted several closures, but the last one was Aug. 16. All the closure posts had been taken down as of Thursday and the bar is now advertising specials on beer and wings.

Contact Jennie Geisler at [email protected]. Or at 814-870-1885.