By Vernon Robison

Moapa Valley Progress

Sugars Restaurant in downtown Overton was restored to its perfect ‘A’ health rating in a SNHD reinspection last week. Photo by Vernon Robison.

Sugar’s Restaurant, a long-time fixture in downtown Overton was restored to a perfect ‘A’ health rating during a Southern Nevada Health District (SNHD) re-inspection on Thursday last week. This after an unscheduled six month inspection done on December 22 slapped the restaurant with a 40 demerit ‘C’ grade.

“We came out of the reinspection today with no demerits,” said Sugar’s owner Judy Metz on Thursday afternoon. “It was actually one of our best inspections. We were restored back to our ‘A’ rating and the inspector said that we had taken care of everything. She said that it looked perfect.”

The December 22 inspection, which reportedly lasted more than two hours, had revealed a whole laundry list of health violations at the restaurant. These ranged in level of seriousness from improper handling of meat products to the lack of a thermometer to monitor the temperature of tap water.

The violations were not enough for the SNHD to close the restaurant down. But it did attract the attention of the Las Vegas media. Sugar’s was featured the following week on the Las Vegas KTNV Channel 13 News feature “Dirty Dining”.

Metz, who has prided herself on more than two decades of consistent ‘A’ ratings at the restaurant, described the experience as heart wrenching. She happened to be taking a day off from the restaurant on the day of the inspection.

“I work really hard to do these things and make sure that we’re in full compliance,” she said. “Then to take a blow like that just went straight to my heart.”

But some good has come from the experience, Metz said. The restaurant has instituted new policies and procedures to address ongoing compliance issues.

“We have developed and posted checklists for our employees,” Metz said. “They are being required to just go down the checklist and make sure that food is being handled right. We are keeping careful track of stored foods being covered, sealed and dated. That one directive covers a lot of the violations that we had.”

Metz also said that there would be consequences if employees repeatedly disregarded these policies.