Lucky Days makes changes and seeks area manager

Lucky Days is also recruiting an area manager “to give greater focus, management and monitoring of our systems.”

The move follows Lucky Days at 77 Low Petergate receiving a One Star food hygiene rating from City of York Council in August, meaning Major Improvement Necessary. Previously, it was rated 5-stars, meaning ‘Very Good.’

In addition, Lucky Days in Church Street has received 3-stars after an inspection during October, meaning ‘generally satisfactory.’

READ MORE:

• Lucky Days in Church Street York explains its zero food hygiene score
• Well-known York café is given a 'zero-star' food hygiene rating

This followed the same premises receiving a Zero rating both in June this year and last December, meaning Urgent Improvement Necessary.

City of York Council has declined to comment on Lucky Days in case this may prejudice any future legal action.

However, the Food Standards Agency website, which uses council data, offers a little more detail.

For Low Petergate, it was a case of ‘improvement necessary’ for hygienic food handling and the condition and cleanliness of the facilities and building.

For management of food safety, the latest visit revealed ‘major improvement necessary.’

For Church Street, hygienic food handling was ‘generally satisfactory’, the cleanliness and condition of the facilities and building was ‘good’ and the management of food safety was ‘generally satisfactory.’

Lucky Days owner Chris Holder told The Press: “We fulfilled all our obligations at Church Street following the 0 score and fortunately I was on site when the inspector revisited which we paid for. I was feeling very confident whilst chatting to the inspector who seemed happy with the inspection.

“I was obviously hoping for a 5 score which i told the inspector. I was then shocked when she told me that she would not be able to give me a high score as they have to take into account the previous 0 score. Therefore, if the visit scored 5 we would not be getting a 5 which obviously shocked me.”

Chris Holder

Chris continued: “At Low Petergate we held 5 stars for many years and to be honest with staff shortages some of the procedures of recording actions had slipped.

“For example, cheesecake and scones displayed in our ambient window have a shelf life of 4 hours which we know they are never there that long and everybody knows our company rotation systems, however this had not been logged on the record sheet what time items were topped up.

“We have subsequently bought a new refrigerated window display counter so the cakes may stay on display longer even though we know they will still be used well within 4 hours.

“We had similar comments about our kitchen salads in our open salad dispense fridge being a few degrees over the ideal below 8 degrees, which means we must use them within 4 hours, we actually top up our salad containers many times during our 4-hour lunch period as they are small, however we again had not logged how many times a day and times they had been topped up.”

Chris said structural matters such as a loose fly screen, a freezer handle falling off and flaking ceiling paint above the hot oven vent were all instantly addressed.

He added: “We are in the process of recruiting an area manager for Lucky Days to give greater focus, management and monitoring of our systems.”

Lucky Days also has a café in Parliament Street, which has 5-stars, as does the Lucky Days in Leeds.