LIVERPOOL'S restaurants, bars and takeaways can say goodbye to three quarters of their customers if they fall foul of food hygiene standards, according to latest research.
But you don't need a full blown kitchen nightmare - like the rampaging rat in Fawlty Towers to send punters running for the hills. Even a hint of something fishy going on in the kitchen is enough to drive 75 percent of diners somewhere else - even if it's been recommended by someone that they trust - while 61 percent won’t go near a restaurant, takeaway, coffee shop or pub that has a low Food Standards Agency rating - AKA the scores on the doors.
Not much of a surprise there. But according to the latest FSA figures there's quite a lot of complacency out there from some of the biggest restaurant names - and that translates as a wide choice of places for the fussy and not so fussy eater to steer clear of.
Some 243 restaurants, cafes, canteens, mobile caterers, pubs, takeaways, sandwich shops and hotels in Liverpool have a Food Hygiene Rating of two or below - 11 percent of the city's total.
This means they are classed as urgent improvement necessary, major improvement necessary or simply improvement necessary.
Even more damning, at time of publication there are 14 zero-rated restaurant black spots in the city six of them in Liverpool One shops. They include Chaophraya/Palm Sugar Lounge, which briefly closed in March when evidence of mice was found in the kitchen, Zizzi, Red Hot World Buffet, Yo! Sushi, Las Iguanas and Nando's. Other high profile "nil points" include the Adelphi Hotel and next door pub The Vines.
Diners said they would rather put up with poor service from rude and unhelpful staff than eat at dirty restaurants. Two thirds of respondents (66 percent) rated unclean or dirty premises as the first or second reason for not returning to a restaurant. Just 16 percent cited slow or poor service and 32 percent said rude or unhelpful staff would stop them coming back to a restaurant.
The research, from food industry hygiene app Checkit, found that consumers had the highest expectations of fine dining restaurants, with 69 percent saying they would not visit any that had a low food hygiene rating. This was followed by takeaways (including Chinese, Indian or kebab sellers), with 64 percent of people avoiding any with low food hygiene ratings. In contrast they were slightly better disposed to cafés and coffee shops (55 percent), possibly due to the more limited range of food being sold.
The Checkit Study is based on research carried out online with 1,000 consumers by Toluna in H1 2016, combined with analysis of the Food Standards Agency’s Food Hygiene Rating Scheme website on 19th May 2016.
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