Home restaurants

Is there anything similar to H H Holmes in the food industry (I dont consider Tylenol food and thats the only one I can think of)? Seems like hotels are a bigger danger.

Edit: Wait a sec, wasnt the Tylenol poisonings in Chicago too? What is up with Chicago?

Just the idea of going alone into the home of someone you don't know , you're the only guest, and having a meal. I wasn't thinking about cross contamination. I was thinking about a Sweeny Todd situation!

Maybe it shouldn't be of concern until they advertise on Craig's List.

[Robin Garr]

Yes, it was a serious question, and thats a reasonable answer. The nastiness of hotel rooms bothers me at least as much, but I can see worrying about food more.

Is there anything similar to H H Holmes in the food industry (I dont consider Tylenol food and thats the only one I can think of)? Seems like hotels are a bigger danger.

Rob, it's not just deathly issues, though. I'm just assuming here, too, but it seems to me that food poisoning, salmonella, Montezuma's revenge and the like can crop up pretty quickly if you don't have an inspection system set up to ensure that places preparing food for public consumption practice good sanitation, hand-washing, and such, and also employ training and ensure reasonable efforts to protect cross-contamination from meat and poultry juices, toxic kitchen materials and bodily fluids all three. Again, the simple reality that restaurants have fallible humans preparing foodstuffs for other humans to put in our mouths demands regulation. I just can't help feeling that there are a lot more invisible threats at a restaurant table than in a hotel room.

Edit: Wait a sec, wasnt the Tylenol poisonings in Chicago too? What is up with Chicago?

Louisville is doubly blessed: We get part of our culture and politics from Chicago, part from New Orleans.

Rob, it's not just deathly issues, though. I'm just assuming here, too, but it seems to me that food poisoning, salmonella, Montezuma's revenge and the like can crop up pretty quickly if you don't have an inspection system set up to ensure that places preparing food for public consumption practice good sanitation, hand-washing, and such, and also employ training and ensure reasonable efforts to protect cross-contamination from meat and poultry juices, toxic kitchen materials and bodily fluids all three. Again, the simple reality that restaurants have fallible humans preparing foodstuffs for other humans to put in our mouths demands regulation.

It's funny that I've heard those comments made many times by many people were very qualified yet I've never seen any proof of it. If that's the case then how come family members at everyone's home don't come down with the same types of foodborne issues? I may be leaning a little farther left that I normally do but if sanitation in home kitchens with such a problem wouldn't doctors and ER's be seeing thousands of patients for the illnesses that you mentioned? Seems like the fact that they don't would lead you to believe that most home kitchens have decent sanitation standards without regulation.

Speaking of bitcoin, does any restaurant take them in town? I got some burning a hole in my virtual wallet.

And remember despite health inspections we still have plenty of restaurants that are inspected by cities all over the country that still end up making people dead.

It's funny that I've heard those comments made many times by many people were very qualified yet I've never seen any proof of it. If that's the case then how come family members at everyone's home don't come down with the same types of foodborne issues? I may be leaning a little farther left that I normally do but if sanitation in home kitchens with such a problem wouldn't doctors and ER's be seeing thousands of patients for the illnesses that you mentioned? Seems like the fact that they don't would lead you to believe that most home kitchens have decent sanitation standards without regulation.

People tend to practice good hygiene when they're cooking for themselves so they don't get sick. If these "home restaurants" are just people having open dinner parties and asking folks to help pay for the costs, I think the risk is low. The problem comes in when that slides over into people operating full-on fly-by-night restaurants out of their houses, where they're no longer cooking for themselves or friends but are focused on making money and might let sanitation slide.

[Robin Garr]

People tend to practice good hygiene when they're cooking for themselves so they don't get sick. If these "home restaurants" are just people having open dinner parties and asking folks to help pay for the costs, I think the risk is low. The problem comes in when that slides over into people operating full-on fly-by-night restaurants out of their houses, where they're no longer cooking for themselves or friends but are focused on making money and might let sanitation slide.

I think this hits the nail right on the head. I also think you've identified an important criterion, Jeff: How do we draw the precise line between "asking folks to help pay for the cost of your dinner party" an d "operating a food-service business"?

Only half-joking, this is very similar to the perennial forum question, "When does a nice local indie evolve into an evil chain?" The answer, quite seriously, is the point at which profit trumps quality.

I think this hits the nail right on the head. I also think you've identified an important criterion, Jeff: How do we draw the precise line between "asking folks to help pay for the cost of your dinner party" an d "operating a food-service business"?

Only half-joking, this is very similar to the perennial forum question, "When does a nice local indie evolve into an evil chain?" The answer, quite seriously, is the point at which profit trumps quality.

You certainly hit the meal on the head there Robin! I think the correct answer is that in the case of these Home Restaurants the crossover point comes when the people doing the cooking stop doing it because they love cooking and sharing their successes with others and start doing it because they want to make money!

I may be leaning a little farther left that I normally do

...It's never to late to come over to the bright side Mark.

I may be leaning a little farther left that I normally do

...It's never to late to come over to the bright side Mark.

I might consider moving to the sunny side of the river (although it's actually never sunny over there) but I certainly would never consider falling into the Dungeon on the Left Side of reality! In a long-term there certainly not any brightness over there.

There needs to be some perspective here:

The greatest improvement for public health in history was the deployment of sanitation/sewage systems.Second greatest improvement is sanitized water systems. Everything else is window dressing in relation to those.

The public risk is much greater in the case of a sanitation failure at a restaurant that serves 100s of people a week, vs. a home restaurant that might serve 4 people a week. An inspection regime that doesn't acknowledge or allow for these differences in exposure is not good engineering or good public policy.

This is the same thing with butcher operations that produces ground beef from many dozens of steers at a time vs. an operation that processes one steer at a time. Or a diary that produces and pasteurizes milk from hundreds of cows vs. one that distributes raw milk from a few cows at a time. The attendant public health risks diverge wildly.

Since the public risk is vastly different in scale, the government interest should be vastly different in scale. Of course, we know this isn't the case. The main purpose of a government bureaucrat will always evolve toward increasing the power and scope of the bureaucracy. Always.

Exhibit A.
Exhibit B

With regards to food inspections and preparation standards... there's no reason that a free market of "food preparation" certification companies couldn't perform this function better than any government.

There could be competing standards and processes and inspection regimens. People selling food to the public could pay these companies to the level of certification that they deem appropriate to their business. The displayed certificate could inform the public of that information. And then the public could decide what food to purchase or where to eat based on that and any other of their preferences. The types of personal preferences that government bureaucrats can never consider.

So, that way, 'I' could decide to take my chances by eating at John and Sue's pop-up home restaurant, where they only have a sanitation training certificate but no regular inspections.

[Robin Garr]

The main purpose of a government bureaucrat will always evolve toward increasing the power and scope of the bureaucracy. Always.

Don't forget the inspector's motto "Ubi est meam?".

The funny thing is that I agree with much of what you say, but not with extending it to the far libertarian end of the spectrum. Inspection and regulation scaled to the size of the business, yes. Understanding that the consumer takes some risk, sure. But abandoning all inspection because individuals have the ability to make changes? That's Randian, and it fails the naivete test.

The main purpose of a government bureaucrat will always evolve toward increasing the power and scope of the bureaucracy. Always.

Don't forget the inspector's motto "Ubi est meam?".

The funny thing is that I agree with much of what you say, but not with extending it to the far libertarian end of the spectrum. Inspection and regulation scaled to the size of the business, yes. Understanding that the consumer takes some risk, sure. But abandoning all inspection because individuals have the ability to make changes? That's Randian, and it fails the naivete test.

No one said inspections will be abandoned. Certification agencies could offer inspection/indemnification services at their higher levels of certification.

Inspections are really important in some cases. So, the market will provide inspections, because some restaurants that don't offer them will go out of business.. or be sued out of business. There are already many examples in industry of private certification/inspection services. This is not unprecedented, wacko stuff here.

[Robin Garr]

There are already many examples in industry of private certification/inspection services. This is not unprecedented, wacko stuff here.

I didn't say "unprecedented."

Seriously, though, it's hard to ignore the many failures of the privatization experiments of the post-Reagan era. Prisons and corrections in particular stand out, but there are plenty more awful examples of the surprising truth that private, profit-making public services are likely to be even more corrupt and even less competent than the much-scorned bureaucracy. It's really about oversight, I suspect, and that can fail equally spectacularly in both the public and private sector.

There are already many examples in industry of private certification/inspection services. This is not unprecedented, wacko stuff here.

I didn't say "unprecedented."

Seriously, though, it's hard to ignore the many failures of the privatization experiments of the post-Reagan era. Prisons and corrections in particular stand out, but there are plenty more awful examples of the surprising truth that private, profit-making public services are likely to be even more corrupt and even less competent than the much-scorned bureaucracy. It's really about oversight, I suspect, and that can fail equally spectacularly in both the public and private sector.

The thing with the prisons/corrections privatization failures is that it's still backed by state power, and then the inevitability of cronyism. The "customers" of prisons don't have any choice in the matter. The truth is, the whole thing is still an exercise of government power.

There's plenty of abuse and corruption in government ran prisons. Maybe even more than the quasi-private ones. You choose to look away from those. To say that there is less corruption in government ran activities is laughable.

I'm laughing:

"For profit prisons" are not "private". The JOD and BOP pay them with tax payers money. These places are nightmarish because the state funds them on shoe string budgets and then use them as scape goats. The patsy is the ultimate state crony, in cronyism.

The only privatization I have seen coming out of Reagan era politics is the abundance of private military contractors. Raytheon, Dynacorp, Lockheed Martin, Boeing etc etc. Eisenhower warned us of them, and again it isn't privatization as much as contracting. We still pay them in taxes so no free market solution there.

I think with health inspections real "private" solutions look like independent guilds and restaurant associations volunteering to be inspected. Hypothetically groups of restauranteurs would police themselves. If you saw "Louisville Originals" on the door of your restaurant and you would know that this group does it's own private inspections that are up to a standard set by the group and you dine with confidence. It would be mandatory to join the group and the criterion would be defined by the group and done on their budget.

This is just a sketch of how a voluntary stateless system could work, I haven't put a ton of thought into it, but I think the premise is sound.