Common sense 101 - a hand sink is for washing hands

When we purchased our little corner market, the hand sink was unoperable. It had a huge hole right in the porcelain. A hand sink is where people wash their hands, and is a mandatory part of any food service establishment. It's surprising that the previous owner was not cited for this.

We replaced the sink, all the while wondering how a huge hole could have been made in the previous one. Soon we noticed how this possibly might have happened. Huge pots, waiting to be washed, piled on top of the little sink. We quickly put an end to that.

However, soon little things appeared in the sink. Knives mostly. How dangerous was that - knives in the hand sink. And beyond common sense. A notice went up - on the sink, that the hand sink was for hands only. Worked for awhile, and mostly knives have stayed out of it.

This morning, when washing his hands, an employee noted that the sink wasn't draining. Great. We'll have to deal with it after lunch, and hope the health inspector doesn't come in. I HAD noticed an employee putting a thermometer on the back of the sink the night before, and actually caught the thermometer before it slipped down into the sink. The employee told me "yeah, I thought about that before I put it there." Duh. Common Sense 101. A few weeks before the same employee called me to say they noticed a thermometer wedged in the drain of the sink. Duh, so let's do it again.

Well, today, it wasn't a thermometer. It was macaroni. Hmmm.... macaroni drained in the hand sink, meant for HANDS ONLY. If they used a colander, they missed it. When we took apart the drain to clear it out, we found at least half a cup of cooked macaroni and a plastic half a teaspoon. I don't know how long the spoon had been there.

Common sense 101. A hand sink is not a macaroni sink.