Cockroach Wars at Colorado Springs plaza: ‘they moved in and it was Armageddon,’ says manager
Julia Donovan
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) – This week’s Restaurant Roundup is an investigation into a cockroach problem that has neighboring restaurants in one plaza off Barnes Road begging for change.
“No roaches, no nothing, no bugs of any sort when I first started – then they moved in, and it was just Armageddon,” said the manager of the Cheba Hut, which shares a wall with this week’s low-scoring restaurant: Pho Express #1.
Pho Express #1 was caught with 18 violations, including a cockroach infestation, back in April.
The owner, Duy Nguyen, had told us he thought they were coming from shipments and said they couldn’t get things under control.
Well… apparently they never did!
Pho Express #1 recently failed its routine health inspection again – this time with 23 violations!
Those violations include – you guessed it – cockroaches.
“It’s on and off,” owner Duy Nguyen told us when we stopped by.
The inspector also noted a gap under the back door, employees not using soap when washing their hands and some dishes, and one employee wiping their nose and not changing gloves afterward. There were also no thermometers in the entire restaurant!
The inspector decided that all of this was enough to warrant a temporary closure.
But Duy seems to deny any wrongdoing when it comes to the roaches; he says pest control can confirm that.
“They’re saying it’s actually the whole building,” Duy argued.
After Duy made that claim, we checked in with the Cheba Hut next door.
While the problem might be building-wide now, Cheba Hut Manager Emily Render says Pho Express started it!
“They like burrowed a hole from them to over here,” Emily said.
Now, Emily and her crew are working overtime to combat the catastrophe!
“We have people come out once per month to spray everywhere. Every time we get a sighting, we immediately take care of it,” Emily explained. “We constantly have to clean up their mess in our shared dumpster area, same with Parry’s.”
Parry’s GM, David Garcia, corroborated Emily’s story.
Note: there’s a small alleyway between Pho Express #1 and Parry’s.
“We end up having to pick up some items for them just so we don’t have any of those issues coming into our building,” Dave said in an interview with KRDO13.
“I’ve literally scooped up maggots off the ground in a trash bag before that they threw out, and they would leave animal bones outside,” Emily added.
We asked health department officials if they’re looking into these allegations of ongoing negligence.
They reiterated what we already knew from inspection reports: all the neighbors passed recent inspections with no roach notes.
The El Paso County Public Health Department also said Pho Express #1 passed its re-opening inspection with no cockroaches.
“Instead of [being] open seven days per week, we’ll close Wednesday now so we do a deep clean every week,” Duy explained some new changes.
Duy admitted the handwashing violations came from a quote, “lack of supervision,” and said they’re doing more training.
He also said they’ve remodeled the kitchen and installed a metal baseboard.
Still, managers at Cheba Hut, Parry’s, and Tokyo Joe’s are worried this won’t be the end of the cockroach wars.
“I’m happy they’re trying to find the root cause, but I also feel like they might be the root cause and they’re just trying to play it off,” Emily worries.
We asked Pho Express if they had any response to neighbors’ claims about them disposing of their trash improperly. They said they’ll talk to their kitchen staff about that.