Restaurant Inspection: Fruit Flies and Gnats at a Gwinnett Frontera

SUWANEE, GA — The presence of fruit flies, both dead and alive, and gnats helped lead to a failing health inspection grade for the Frontera Mex-Mex Grill location in Suwanee.

The restaurant, at 2137 Lawrenceville Suwanee Rd., received a failing grade of 69-U on the inspection, which took place Monday.

According to the inspection report, dead fruit flies were discovered on cut limes in the bar area.

"Several fruit flies and gnats" also were reported flying around inside the restaurant.

"Mold-like accumulations" were found in multiple spots in ice machines at the restaurant, several food items were not being stored at the proper temperature and clean dishes were found being stored in dirty bins.

Employees were storing their personal cellphones above a steam table with food on it and, in one case, a cellphone chord was in contact with an open bag of tortilla chips.

The Frontera restaurant's most recent inspection score was a 95-A from February 15. But that came one week after it had received a 75-C on a previous visit.

As is customary, inspectors asked restaurant employees to correct as many of the problems as they could and planned a follow-up inspection for no more than 10 days later.

Each item on an inspection form has a point value ranging from 1 to 9 points, with violations deducting points from a best possible score of 100.

Higher points are taken for items with higher risk to cause illness, while repeat violations take even more points.

Letter grades assigned are A for totals of 100 to 90 points, B for 89 to 80, C for 79 to 70, and U for less than 70.

Photo via Frontera Mex-Mex Grill Facebook page