Side order of better service, please

George Abou-Daoud knows a thing or two about opening and operating a restaurant in this town—from a buzzed-about oyster bar/bistro to an old school Mexican-style cantina.

But with eight restaurants and six years in the business here, he’s mystified about one thing:

The county’s restaurant inspection process—especially when it comes to getting a new place off the ground.

“There is an unbelievable inconsistency in terms of what the different inspectors want you to do,” said Abou-Daoud, who’s preparing to launch the new Rosewood Tavern, which will join his other Hollywood restaurants including District, the Mercantile Wine Bar and Delancey Pizzeria & Bar. “Every possible way you can go about it, somebody’s got a different opinion.”

Then there are delays in plan approvals that can run well over the standard processing time of 20 days—and cost the restaurateur plenty as he pays rent on an unopened eatery. “When you buy a restaurant or lease a place, the clock is running,” Abou-Daoud said.

He’s not alone in his concerns. In response to such complaints, Los Angeles County Supervisors on Tuesday postponed until July 12 a vote on a Department of Public Health proposal to hike inspection fees for most restaurants—adjustments that the department says are necessary to cover its costs. (The department estimates that 72% of restaurants would pay more under the proposal, while the rest would pay less. In addition, in some cases fees would be assessed for services that are now free.) Before they approve any fee changes, the supervisors said, they want the department to come up with a plan for improving service, to get more input from the restaurant industry and to make the rationale for the proposed increases more transparent.

The board action came on a motion by Supervisor Don Knabe, who said that the fee hikes hadn’t been adequately communicated with “rate payers” in the industry who would be most affected. Amendments to the motion came from Supervisors Michael D. Antonovich and Zev Yaroslavsky.

Yaroslavsky said the department needed to speed up its plan check reviews, to offer “clear and consistent” interpretations of the food code and to rein in unprofessional behavior by some front-line inspectors. And it needs to do so without asking for additional resources.

“The problem with people at the lower end of the food chain is that some of them get a little carried away,” Yaroslavsky said, launching into a joke that Al Gore used to tell about crisscrossing the country during his presidential run and trying in vain to get a little extra chicken on his lunch plate during a picnic stop in South Carolina.

Gore asks for two pieces and is told that one is the limit.  “And Gore said, ‘Do you know who I am? I’m Al Gore, and I’m running for President of the United States.’ The server said, ‘Do you know who I am? I’m the guy who serves the chicken.’”

Yaroslavsky said the Department of Public Health, along with other permit-issuing agencies, have some “little Napoleons running around who have a little bit of power, and they’re the people who serve the chicken.”

Dr. Jonathan E. Fielding, the county’s director of public health, agreed that the department could stand some improvements in the customer service department and could do more to integrate restaurant owners into the rate-setting process. He also said the department would post on its website a survey by an independent consultant that was used to establish the proposed increases, which would be the first since 2007. That survey measured the actual time it takes the department to perform each kind of inspection, and set the proposed fees accordingly—a more precise method than what was in place previously.

“We have to be very customer-sensitive and friendly while at the same time making sure that we enforce the state and local codes to protect the public health,” Fielding said.

Some restaurateurs say they’re afraid to complain about the process or about individual inspectors for fear of retaliation. But Fielding said they had nothing to fear, and should speak up about any problems. “If we don’t know about them, we can’t solve them,” he said.

As for Abou-Daoud—once described as a “mogul whose lounges are docked along Sunset Boulevard like ocean liners” by L.A. Weekly restaurant critic Jonathan Gold—he’s not griping about higher fees, as long they’re accompanied by improvements.

“Raise them—but offer something in return that saves us money on the back end,” he said.

Posted 5/12/11