You and your family decided to head downtown to the Indianola Square for brunch at a popular local spot, Crouse Café. You ordered your favorite food, biscuits and gravy, along with some pancakes. It tastes amazing—until you find yourself bedridden with an illness you didn’t wake up with, leaving you to wonder what happened.
On Jan. 7, a state inspector visited Crouse Café following a complaint from an Indianola resident who had eaten there and became ill. The inspector found multiple health code violations, including mold on the sausage patties in the cooler, cooks washing their hands in food-prep sinks rather than designated handwashing sinks, dairy products stored at improper temperatures, and cooked and raw meat placed so close together that they were at risk of cross-contamination, according to The Des Moines Register.
This news surprised many Indianola residents, as Crouse holds a special place in the hearts of its consumers.
“I love going to Crouse with my friends and family when they are in town,” Savanna Walls, a junior at Simpson College, said. “It’s always been such a warm and welcoming environment, and I have a lot of good memories with my friends from weekend breakfasts there.
In response to the publication of the health code violations, Crouse Café posted on its Facebook page, “We knew nothing about a possible illness, which was odd. If you thought food you had consumed made you sick, wouldn’t you contact the business to notify them so it doesn’t happen to others? We have been in business for 79 years, and, to our knowledge, nobody has gotten food poisoning at our establishment.”
While their response to the incident was defensive, they admitted in the post that the inspection errors were true and could be attributed to “human error.”
“We are a busy restaurant that gets 3 to 4 food deliveries a week. We did have some errors, but honestly, if the food inspector would have found nothing, then she wouldn’t be good at her job,” the post explains.
However, Crouse Café isn’t the only restaurant facing recent health code violations in Indianola. The Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals, & Licensing published the results of a routine inspection of A&W completed on Dec. 3, 2024, citing a total of five violations. The violations included uncovered root beer and flour vats in the basement, raw chicken and milk stored at improper temperatures, machines not cleaned frequently, and ointment stored above an open container of flour. While A&W isn’t frequented as much as Crouse Café, news like this makes the advice, “There’s food at home,” a little easier to swallow.
Next time you plan to eat out, consider checking food safety reports before you do. You might just save yourself the trouble of losing your appetite.