Bleeding Heart Bakery on CHD Closing: ‘Our Side of the Story’

Yesterday, news of the Bleeding Heart Bakery Chicago Health Department-imposed closure ricocheted around the blogosphere. Just now, we received a note from bakery owners Michelle and Vinny Garcia, with their version of events. Curious set of coincidences, here:

On Sunday night, after service, our kitchen sink became clogged, once noticed in the morning, the sink was covered and not used. The hand sink near by was affected and was also closed. These are two of 6 sinks we have in the bakery, three of which are hand sinks. This in no way said that we were not either washing our hands (as there is a sink 15 feet away for that) or our dishes. We were not actually open and no food could have in anyway been affected. Drano (yes, I know…bad) had already been purchased and cleared the drain in minutes. Problem solved before 11am.

We get our trash serviced every Monday by Waste Management. They usually come around 10 am which they did yesterday. As our inspection was between 8 and 9, the garbage was not emptied yet. We pay for this service and they come faithfully every week.

There were two members of the staff present both of which had their sanitation license, they were not asked for it. However, the bakery was cited for not having a staff member with their sanitation license present. The owner, Michelle recently had surgery and had to run out for 1 hour to a post op appointment. This one hour just happened to be the hour the health department showed up. Interesting.

We have always prided ourselves on our cleanliness and have supported an open kitchen from the very beginning to prove we have nothing to hide.

We apologize for any problems this may cause people, we have already gone back to the city and will be re-inspected within 48 hours, which is routine procedure. We will be open for business this weekend or sooner, without a doubt, and we will be celebrating another wonderful Valentines Day.

The uncanny coincidence of the health inspector showing up at what appears to be exactly the worst moment possible for Bleeding Heart inspired us to check out the Health Department inspection guidelines [PDF alert] — turns out it’s completely kosher to show up outside of operating hours, just before trash pickup, while the owner isn’t present. And as much as we like Michelle and Vinny and want their business to thrive, we understand that it’s smart for those guidelines to be in place. Bureaucracy: Keeping us from our organic vegan pumpkin cupcakes since, well, yesterday.

Bleeding Heart Bakery [MenuPages]
Bleeding Heart Bakery [Official Site]

[Photo: Chestnut cupcake from the Bleeding Heart Bakery’s Flickr]

Tags:

Bleeding Heart Bakery on CHD Closing: ‘Our Side of the Story’