Inspector shuts An Beal for a week

The city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene shut down An Beal Bocht Cafe for six days starting on Sept. 29 due to 43 health code violations. The neighborhood staple at 445 W. 238th St. reopened on Monday after resolving the problems.

According to the Health Department’s report, An Beal’s “raw, cooked or prepared food is adulterated, contaminated, cross-contaminated, or not discarded in accordance with [city standards].”

A health inspector also found “live roaches present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas” and “filth flies or food/refuse/sewage-associated (FRSA) flies present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas.”

Filth flies, considered a critical violation according to the Health Department, include horse flies, little houseflies, blow flies, bottle flies and flesh flies.

The report listed other, non-critical violations. Those included lack of proofing against vermin or infestation unsanitary plates and silverware.

Adam Scott, a Riverdale resident and frequent patron of the bar, was at An Beal the day it was shut down.

“Everyone was here having lunch, you know, it was a small crowd, only two people were eating. Everyone else was having drinks,” he recounted. “There was this dude on his iPad, from the Health Department, he was going in and out frequently and then really without talking to anyone he put up a notice, like a yellow sheet that said ‘closed.’”

Patrons, Mr. Scott said, were confused and asked the bartender what had happened.

“We finished our beers real fast and then they shuttered it,” he said. “It was all in the course of maybe five minutes, I’d say, that happened.”

An Beal Bocht’s owner Tony Caffrey said that the Health Department came at an unfortunate time.

“The building had exterminators here on [Sept. 27] to exterminate the building and all the roaches came down to us,” he said. “The guy happened to walk in on [Sept. 29] and we had gotten infested.”

Mr. Caffrey said that the bar is not usually infested with any sort of vermin, insisting it is quite clean.