SYCAMORE TOWNSHIP, Ohio — One of the region’s fastest-growing breweries also leads its rivals in restaurant violations.
March First Brewing had 26 violations at its Sycamore Township location this year — 23 of them since July 23. That makes it one of five brewery locations with at least 10 violations this year, based on the WCPO 9 I-Team’s review of online food inspection reports in Southwest Ohio and Northern Kentucky.
March First spokesman Josh Engel said a regional manager is working with Hamilton County Public Health to address inspectors’ concerns.
“We also just hired a new experienced kitchen manager that will be looking at all processes including safety and recording,” Engel added.
The I-Team has been tracking restaurant violations for more than a decade and breweries rarely rise to a level of concern for local health departments. But breweries have also been expanding their restaurant operations in recent years, thanks to increasing competition and changing consumer tastes.
“People come and drink beer and then all of a sudden they decide they better get something to eat,” said Jon Newberry, president of Wiedemann Brewery in St. Bernard. “And you better have some food to serve them, or else they’re going to go somewhere else to eat and drink more beer.”
Newberry is a former journalist who learned while covering the beer beat that the Wiedemann trademark had lapsed. So, he hired an attorney to claim the brand and built a company around it. A St. Bernard resident, Newberry found a home for that company in a vacant funeral parlor, which he filled with memorabilia, live music and German-inspired dishes like Goetta Tots and the Wiedie Schnitzel Sandwich.
“It’s a perfect complement to each other, the beer business and the restaurant,” Newberry said. “It’s a good marketing tool for Wiedemann beer.”
Newberry sees some big differences between restaurants and breweries. But he adds both depend on cleanliness.
“Cook a good burger, keep the stuff clean and it’s just continual maintenance,” Newberry said. “With a brewery, it’s the same way. Making beer is 90% keeping things clean. The difference is with beer, if you don’t keep the equipment clean, you end up with a thousand gallons of bad beer.”
Wiedemann has two violations so far in 2024.
“I think we’re maybe on our second or third inspector,” he said. “They usually find a couple of things that they bring to our attention (but) we get along great with the inspector.”
March First, by contrast, has two of the five locations with 10 or more violations in 2024. Middletown’s FigLeaf Brewing Co., which was acquired by March First in 2019, had 15 violations in May and June, including a critical violation for not having an employee who is state-certified in food protection. There were no violations after June 6.
“We are happy with our performance at FigLeaf and always strive to provide the best product and services there as well as at all of our locations,” Engel said.
Others in the top five were:
- Sonder Tap Haus in West Chester, with 15 violations, six of them critical.
- VooDoo Brewing in West Chester, with 13 violations, four of them critical.
- Braxton Brewing at CVG Airport, with 10 violations, three of them critical.
In Sycamore Township, March First had 23 violations since July 23, when Hamilton County inspectors responded to a July 19 complaint about “expired food.”
They found “expired and discolored (dark spots/mold?) on ham” in a walk-in cooler and sour cream in a bloated container that measured 63 degrees Fahrenheit. March First was ordered to discard any food over 50 degrees and prepare for a follow-up inspection.
On Aug. 15, inspectors found “expired sausage in food prep coolers” and temperature violations on pizza sauce and mac and cheese in “hot holding” containers.
That led to a third inspection, where inspectors “observed sauces and mac and cheese not heated to temperature in (requisite) time. Ensure to heat through to 165F within 2 hours.” They also found a “large number of fruit flies at both bar locations.”
Health inspectors closely watch food temperatures because bacterial infections can happen when food reaches temperatures between 40 and 140 degrees. It’s called the “danger zone” by public health experts.
When the U.S. Centers for Disease Control investigated causes of foodborne illness in 2023, it found 10% of cases came from improper cooling of hot food in restaurants, while 6% happened when restaurants applied improper amounts of time and temperature to their meals.
The WCPO 9 I-Team did a deep dive on the topic in January. It found 24% of local restaurants had at least one citation related to food temperatures in 2023, down from 37% in 2019.
