Legislature debates cooking of loose meat
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The loose-meat sandwich war has reached the Iowa senate floor.
Taylor’s Maid-Rite restaurant in Marshalltown was told by the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals that it must alter the way it separates raw meat and cooked meat because of health code concerns, but Thursday the Senate passed a voice-voted amendment to the Department of Inspections and Appeals’ budget which would preserve the 82-year-old cooking method of the sloppy-joe style sandwich made sans spices and sauces. The bill now moves to the Iowa House for further approval.
At issue is the question of whether or not Marshalltown’s meat cooker can properly prevent cross-contamination by keeping juices from raw meat from seeping over to the cooked meat by a simple metal divider. Over the years, almost all Maid-Rites, including the one in Newton, have changed the way they separate their meat to meet health code standard by installing a tray to place cooked ground beef.
Two years ago, Dan Holtkamp, owner of the Newton’s Maid-Rite on West First Avenue for the past 40 years, faced a similar situation to Marshalltown’s.
“The inspectors told me they were going to come in and close me down if I didn’t change,” Holtkamp said. “We complied with the restaurant inspectors; we got an inserted pan in our cooker. I wasn’t too pleased with it, but it works.”
Holtkamp added that the only change in making his Maid-Rite sandwiches is he has to keep a closer eye on making sure the beef doesn’t burn in the pan.
The main difference between Newton’s Maid-Rite and Marshalltown’s, though, is the amount of beef being served. Holtkamp said he usually goes through 100 pounds in a day, but Marshalltown, operated by Sandy and Don Taylor — who have familial ties that go back to the ownership of Newton’s Maid-Rite, which was started in 1926 — go through as much as 300-400 pounds of beef per day.
The cost of installing a new corporate Maid-Rite cooker that meets health code specifications, Marshalltown owners say, would be at least $7,000, but that isn’t even the crutch of their argument on why they prefer not to change their cooking style. Sandy Taylor said she has never heard a complaint about a customer getting sick from one of her Maid-Rite sandwiches, which is the only cooked item on Marshalltown’s menu.
“Our cooker cooks over 200 degrees and E. coli (bacteria) is killed instantly at 159,” said Don Taylor. “Either side (of the cooker), the temperature is so much higher than needed to kill E. coli. Cooking temperature is what stops cross-contamination.”
While Newton’s Maid-Rite has been grandfathered as a franchise, leaving it free to operate without any restrictions from the corporate entity — the only drawback, Holtkamp said, is he can’t use the company sandwich wrappers — Marshalltown’s Maid-Rite did not receive similar status three years ago. Since that time, the Taylors say they have been sparring with the Department of Inspections and Appeals and Maid-Rite corporate, which has a cooker that meets health-code specifications but is too small to meet Marshalltown’s demands.
“It’s never been about the money,” Don Taylor said. “The new [cooker] being proposed cooks 20 pounds an hour. We would essentially need 30 of those cookers to go through the volume we cook.”
Supporters of Taylor’s Maid-Rite have started a Facebook page, “Save Taylor’s Maid-Rite Sandwich Shop,” which over the span of a week has attracted more than 8,500 fans.
Dan Holtkamp might not have as much business as Marshalltown, especially since the economy took a turn for the worse, he said, but he’s got enough to get by with the restrictions in place.
“The reason it works well for me is because I don’t have the volume of Marshalltown,” Holtkamp said.
Josh Koehn can be contacted at 792-3121 ext. 422 or via e-mail at jkoehn@newtondailynews.com.
