Despite this summer’s low sanitation rating, Gumby’s Pizza on Hillsborough Street has experienced no major decline in business, according to store manager Mark Brassington.
Brassington said he is confident that upon reinspection the restaurant can pull its score back up to an ‘A’.
“We are just waiting for the health inspector to come back and reevaluate the building,” Brassington said. “It should be within the next two weeks.”
He said regular Gumby’s customers have not been perturbed by the lower health rating because they know it has nothing to do with the quality of the food.
“If anything, we have improved our business with the extra publicity” Brassington said. “It has nothing to do with our food preparation. It mostly has to do with the building being old.”
Brassington said because the building is in such bad condition, Gumby’s plans to move to a new building in the area.
“We are going to be moving the store to a new location in the near future,” Brassington said. “We want to stay in the Hillsborough Street area.”
Sean Brown, a sophomore in English, disagreed. He said the food at Gumby’s was always an appealing option for students on campus in the past, but this health rating is a cause for serious concern.
“Anything that’s cheap and tastes good becomes a mainstay on this campus,” Brown said. “This health score definitely surprises me because I work in a restaurant, and you have to do a lot of things wrong to get a ‘C’ health rating.”
Brown said the fact that Gumby’s sells much of its food through delivery works to the establishment’s advantage.
“I had no idea they had a ‘C’ health rating,” Brown said. “It works to their advantage that many of the people who order from them have never set foot in the actual store.”
Matthew Shepard, a senior in biological sciences, said he agreed Gumby’s current health score is unacceptably low.
“A ‘B’ is bad enough,” Shepard said. “You can get a low ‘A’ with a minimal amount of effort, so to let it get to a ‘C’ is pretty bad.”
Jared Teachey, a freshman in biological sciences, said the health score is not so unbelievable, and it will not stop him from frequenting the restaurant.
“That’s one day out of the year that it was dirty,” Teachey said. “When I worked in food services, our restaurant would be clean one day and filthy the next.”
Jiwei Zhu, a junior in biological sciences, said it doesn’t matter if Gumby’s can bring its sanitation score back up, he will not eat there in the future.
“I don’t think I would ever want to eat there, even if they did bring up their health score,” Zhu said. “There are so many better pizza places on Hillsborough Street that don’t fail their health inspection.”
