Three Onondaga County eateries fail inspections, Bellevue Country Club had 9 violations

Moldy strawberries, unsafe cooler temperatures and food held outside the safe range put Bellevue Country Club at the center of Onondaga County’s latest inspection failures. Three eateries failed county inspections during the week of May 17 through May 23: Bellevue Country Club in Syracuse, El Rancho Viejo in Cicero and Little Caesars on Bartell Road in Brewerton.

Bellevue Country Club drew the most attention because inspectors documented nine violations, including five critical ones. The report said staff discarded two pounds of moldy chopped strawberries and five pounds of moldy whole strawberries after they were found in kitchen coolers. A thermometer was missing from the snack-shack building, but staff brought one over from the main kitchen.

More serious were the temperature problems. Cooked shrimp, shrimp sauce and cooked vegetables were found at 48 degrees Fahrenheit, while the cooler holding them registered 47 degrees. Inspectors also measured a walk-in cooler at 50 degrees, with eggs, heavy cream, canned whipped cream, raw eggs, liquid whole eggs and sour cream all sitting at unsafe temperatures and later discarded. Hot dogs were held at 120 degrees and hamburgers at 112 degrees, both below safe hot-holding levels.

The county’s inspection roundups are more than paperwork. Onondaga County’s Division of Environmental Health says it inspects restaurants as part of its public-health mission, and New York State makes most food-service inspection data available through Health Data NY. The state’s Onondaga County dataset says inspections are a snapshot in time and are updated monthly, so the results may not reflect day-to-day conditions in a kitchen or dining room.

That makes the failed inspections at Bellevue Country Club, El Rancho Viejo and Little Caesars a practical warning for diners across Syracuse, Cicero and Brewerton. Poor cold-holding temperatures, missing equipment and moldy produce are the kinds of problems that can raise the risk of foodborne illness if they are not corrected quickly.

Onondaga County also accepts food-related illness reports and food-service complaints through its public complaint process, giving residents a way to flag problems when restaurant inspections uncover conditions that put customers at risk.