The Tennessee Department of Health conducted a routine inspection of Feast Buffet at 350 Stuart Rd NE, Cleveland, TN, resulting in a critically low score of 40. The restaurant hadn’t even been active for a full month before getting a catastrophically low health score, having opened on May 10th of this year, although having troubles going into full opening. As of today, they are in a ‘soft opening’ state.

The report highlighted a significant lack of active managerial control, with numerous priority violations indicating poor oversight of food safety practices.

Major issues included multiple handwashing failures — no handwashing was observed during the entire inspection. Employees were seen contaminating gloves with raw foods and continuing to handle ready-to-eat items without changing gloves or washing hands, returning from the restroom without washing, and failing to wash hands before putting on gloves or handling equipment. Handwashing sinks lacked soap at the sushi and server stations, and paper towels were missing at the hibachi station.

Temperature control was severely deficient. Several TCS (Time/Temperature Control for Safety) foods were held at improper temperatures: sushi items, white tuna, and tofu ranged from 55–62°F in a cooler that was not turned on; buffet items like pasta salad and crab salad were at 48°F; sausage was at 113°F; and hibachi items, including raw chicken and shrimp, were at 48–52°F. Multiple products were embargoed (totaling over 20 lbs).

Additional critical violations involved cross-contamination risks (raw chicken and fish stored above ready-to-eat foods), inadequate cleaning and sanitizing of equipment and utensils (including zero sanitizer concentration and skipped rinse steps), damaged food cans, missing shellstock tags for oysters, unlabeled chemicals, improper thawing, and poor protection of food from contamination.

The facility also had structural and maintenance problems, such as non-self-closing doors allowing flies inside, wet stacking of containers, improper utensil storage, and repeated violations in areas like equipment cleanliness, plumbing, and toilet facilities.

Overall, the inspection revealed systemic food safety failures across hygiene, temperature management, and basic sanitation protocols. The Person in Charge was educated on corrections, and free food safety training was recommended.

Compounding the issue was the fact that the restaurant had received an inspection before opening on May 4th, and passed with a 93.

The full inspection can be read here: https://inspections.myhealthdepartment.com/tennessee/inspection/?inspectionID=ED1504D3-5A4C-457C-BACD-EA42F21E5BD1