THE owners of Liverpool One restaurant Red Hot World Buffet have been ordered to cough up almost £22,000 after inspectors found its kitchen to be infested with mice.
The all-you can eat venue, which regularly attracted queues of hundreds of hungry punters, has been closed since June with the administrators being called in the same month.
Liverpool Magistrates Court heard that a "significant amount of mouse droppings" were found by inspection officers on equipment washing areas and shelving as early as January 2015. Oven gloves were covered with grease and food debris.
This sort of thing 
Mouse droppings in the head chef's officeThe restaurant was ordered to close and reopened 10 days later after being given a clean bill of health. But further inspections in September 2015 found more mouse droppings along with beetle larvae. The restaurant continued trading, though the bar area was closed.
Johnathan Ball, prosecuting on behalf of Liverpool City Council, said: “A significant amount of mouse droppings were found littered throughout the first floor kitchen. Droppings were found alongside containers of sauce and dried food, on plastic container lids, next to ice cream scoops and near metal racking used to cool cooked foods.”
Pictures from the inspections show live mice stuck in traps and beetle larvae on equipment.
Happier timesDistrict Judge Wendy Lloyd said there was no evidence anyone had been made ill by eating there, but said: “Everything in this case indicates that the standards held by Red Hot Buffet fell very far below the standards that any customer would expect.”
Red Hot World Buffet's parent company, Passepartouts Ltd, admitted 10 counts of breaching food hygiene regulations. It was fined £14,000 and ordered to pay £7,816 costs.
