Texas City Sun
By TJ Aulds - Sun Managing Editor
Published 04/07/04

If there is one thing you can count on in Galveston County, is the fact we have plenty of good restaurants.

No matter your taste in food, you are bound to be just a short drive away from a satisfying meal. But as we have learned over the years, not all of our local eateries do a good job of keeping things clean.

Some, for Heaven’s sake, even have “Slime in the ice machine.”

Thank you Marvin.

The thankless task of making sure these establishments are not allowing unwanted extra ingredients into their recipes falls onto the shoulders of the Galveston County Health District. It’s small staff of inspectors fan out across the county each day checking on restaurants, cantinas, hole in the walls, roving barbecue pits and any place that is serving food to the public.

They don’t wear white wigs or blue glasses. None we know of have ever had a face lift and they sure do not yell.

But those county inspectors do a very nice job of keeping tabs on the county’s eateries. We are sure they have stories to tell.

None you want to hear over your dinner however.

Well tonight, the cleanest of the clean will be the ones who will get the most attention. During ceremonies slated to begin at 7 p.m., the food establishments deemed the cleanest in Galveston County will receive the district’s Gold Ribbon award.

We join the district is praising these various dens of culinary creations on a job well done. We are especially pleased — and frankly somewhat surprised — that many of the honorees are school district cafeterias.

Many of us remember the days when school lunches had to be carbon dated just to figure out what type of food was being served.

Many of the winners are your favorite eateries from here to Galveston Island.

These honored establishments deserve our business because they have gone the extra mile to ensure our health and safety.

But our recognition isn’t reserved for those establishments, but rather the staff of the health district that makes sure local kitchens are kept in line. If we had some gold ribbons we would let you all have some.

We hope our thanks here will suffice.