Restaurant Roundup: Colorado Springs spot closed after 14 violations, Manitou coffee shop clean & gourmet

EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) - A restaurant on the northeast side of town was temporarily closed after the county health inspector found over a dozen violations. Meanwhile, Manitou Springs has another restaurant on the high score list!

Low scores:

Kungfu Noodles & Dumplings at Austin Bluffs Parkway and Barnes Road was temporarily closed after getting 14 violations on its recent routine health inspection.

An employee was caught cleaning dirty dishes, then preparing food without washing their hands first, and the manager didn’t clean a thermometer between uses – potentially causing cross-contamination.

The inspector also noted there weren’t any dates on some food, and utensils weren’t being cleaned or stored properly.

We stopped by to find the restaurant back open after passing its re-inspection.

“We fixed everything,” the host told us.

The manager didn’t want to go on camera, but said the biggest problem was actually their broken cooler, which has now been replaced. He also said they’ve done more training to prevent the other violations from being repeated.

Now to this week’s high scores:

Monica’s Taco Shop on Jamboree Drive, Pizza Bravo in the Stratmoor Hills neighborhood, and The Loft Espresso in Manitou Springs – where lofty expectations are exceeded every day!

“[We] make sure that the staff is trained and [that they] care on a regular basis, instead of just [when] anticipating a health inspection,” co-owner Katie Snyder said in an interview with KRDO.

“We’re not perfect – we always just try to do our best,” Katie’s husband and co-owner, Justin, added.

Keep an eye out for the KRDO13 Restaurant Roundup awards at your favorite restaurant to know the kitchen inside is clean.

Reminder: all of our high and low-scoring restaurants are based on routine health inspections conducted by the El Paso County Health Department.

Click here for a look at all the most recent health inspection scores.

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