Construction dust on the coffee machine – inspectors close the pop-up café in Frankfurt
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fromStefanie Weir
shut down
Food inspectors have closed a pop-up cafe in Frankfurt. Among other things, the operator had baked cakes in his private apartment.
Frankfurt – The shop window of the pop-up café in Frankfurt, which used to house an office supply store, is brightly painted. Recently it says “Closed for the time being”. Since an inspector from the health department ordered the closure on January 7th, no more coffee has been brewed in the empty shop. According to the regulations, a shell with bare walls, in which construction work takes place, is not suitable for a catering business – even if it declares itself as a “pop-up”, which means something like “interim operation for a short time”.
The regulatory office apparently considers the case so bizarre that it published the course of the inspection on Facebook: “Even the long-established food inspector of the regulatory office was amazed when he entered a ‘coffee house’ in Sachsenhausen and a small selection of cakes. But that was the end of the evidence pointing to a food company.”
Frankfurt: food inspector closes pop-up café – caterer had baked cakes at home
“No structural requirements” for a food company were met. Surfaces on which food was prepared were “made of materials that were not easy to clean” and “were not cleaned”. The inspector complained about the missing hand basin at the counter. The rooms of the shell were covered with construction dust. And last but not least: “The cakes offered were produced in the operator’s private apartment.”
He did not expect all these requirements, says the operator on request. He had previously been active as a mobile caterer, founded a coffee catering business a year and a half ago and therefore has not yet run an indoor catering business. But he himself is an experienced barista and has been working in the specialty coffee business for ten years.
Pop-up café causes a stir: operator wants to open a real café in Frankfurt
The shell construction pop-up on Schifferstrasse was only provisional anyway. There he only operated a kind of “window sale” on Fridays. He wanted to do this until the construction work was completed. His plan is to open a proper cafe on site. He can probably do that as soon as the renovation is complete and all the requirements have been met, says the regulatory office. Until then, administrative offense proceedings are ongoing.
The operator recalls that the conversation was friendly, and the inspector even gave structural recommendations that future cafés should take into account. “I was personally very positively surprised by this,” says the operator. He also understands the controller’s arguments.
Controls in Frankfurt: Fines imposed in serious cases
If you want to open a catering business, you only have to register the business, “unless alcohol is also served in addition to the usual products of a café,” explains the spokesman for the regulatory office, Michael Jenisch. “The veterinary department of the public order office is informed about new companies via an interface and integrates the company into a control routine.”
Not all violations of food law regulations are made public. If, however, “to a not inconsiderable extent” or repeatedly, and “the imposition of a fine of at least 350 euros is to be expected”, the reports can be read in the consumer window of the state of Hesse for six months (consumer window.hessen.de).
After controls: four other Frankfurt restaurants closed
The pop-up café is not the only location that has been temporarily closed by the public order office in recent months due to serious defects. In the summer and autumn of 2021, the steak restaurant “Fleischeslust” and the “Gemaltes Haus” on Schweizer Straße and the Maaschanz on Färberstraße were hit.
All three meadows had areas that were heavily “contaminated like mould”, in part mouse droppings, food stored well past the best-before date and glass splinters were found in the cupboard. An Asian restaurant in the district has now been closed due to hygienic deficiencies and mouse droppings throughout the facility. Compared to these reports, the complaints about the pop-up café seem harmless. (Stefanie Weir)