Mouse droppings and no soap: Fishtown restaurant Banh Mi Spot reopens after viral failed health inspection

Spring rolls and matcha milk tea... with a side of mouse poop?

That’s what some Redditors and members of a Fishtown neighborhood Facebook group worry is on offer at Banh Mi Spot, a Vietnamese restaurant on Frankford Avenue that re-opened Thursday afternoon following a failed health inspection that went viral.

Banh Mi Spot was ordered to cease operations at 1:45 p.m. Tuesday after a health inspector discovered 27 health code violations, according to an inspection report.

Among the findings: mouse droppings spread across cutting boards, counters, and containers where food is prepped. No soap was available at the kitchen’s hand wash station — which also had a broken hand sanitizer dispenser— at the time of the inspection, the report stated. Employees were observed working without washing their hands or changing single-use gloves properly.

The restaurant was ordered to close for at least 48 hours due to “imminent health hazards,” according to the report, and could not re-open until a $315 fine was paid and another inspection was passed.

Health inspections are generally regarded as snapshots in time and not necessarily reflective of day-to-day conditions; most violations are corrected on the spot during an inspection. That hasn’t stopped Philadelphia’s corner of the internet from fixating on Banh Mi Spot’s issues, which, to some, practically feel like a bid to get on one of Gordon Ramsey’s shows.

Posts on Reddit and Facebook have received hundreds of comments, while a TikTok from local content creator Arianna Hemmings has been viewed more than 312,000 times.

“If you ever ate at that banh mi spot in Fishtown, Philadelphia ... you might want to maybe vomit or get checked,” Hemmings said in the video. “This might hold the record for the most mouse feces found in a restaurant.” Commenters wondered if mouse poop was “their secret sauce.”

Banh Mi Spot reopened at 1 p.m. Thursday after passing a re-inspection, according to Philadelphia Department of Health Department records.

The restaurant opened at 1425 Frankford Ave. in August after taking over the lease from beloved vegetarian cafe PomPom, and serves a pared-down menu of banh mis, pho, milk teas, and Vietnamese coffee.

Co-owner Khoa Nguyen celebrated the re-opening by posting a video to the restaurant’s Instagram account where he ceremoniously peeled off part of the cease-operations notice with his bare hands.

The ordeal, Nguyen said, has left him embarrassed.

“People think highly of you as a business owner, and I’ve lost their respect, their trust,” Nguyen, 38, said.

Nguyen said he knew that Banh Mi Spot had some cleanliness issues.

“Funny story is that on the day [of the inspection] I did see rat poop,” said Nguyen, who said he had plans to address the feces but didn’t get to it in time. Soap was also on the premises, he said, but employees had moved it away from the sink.

Nguyen attributed these lapses to being understaffed. The restaurant has six employees between front and back-of-house.

“We’re just really tired,” Nguyen said. “We didn’t take initiative.”

Banh Mi Spot underwent a deep clean between the failed inspection and their reopening, Nguyen said. “We vacuumed, swept, mopped, bleached, everything.”

All supplies that came in contact with mouse feces were thrown away, said Nguyen, and an exterminator will visit the restaurant weekly to check traps.

Staff will also be retrained on restaurant-industry basics like handwashing and how to properly label ingredients with expiration dates.

“People listen to you, do the right thing, and after awhile‚ they kind of forget,” said Nguyen, a South Jersey wedding photographer whose previous restaurant experience was limited to briefly owning a Mr. Wish tea shop in Ardmore that didn’t handle food. “Now that my staff knows the reasons behind these inspections, they’re more understanding and a little scared,” he said. “A situation like this wakes a whole business up.”

Nguyen is defensive over claims on social media that Banh Mi Spot has given customers food poisoning.

“The feces isn’t touching the food. It’s touching other surfaces away from the food,” Nguyen said. He said he and his staff had been “eating the food here every single day, and we haven’t gotten sick.”

Ironically, that’s part of the problem: The Banh Mi Spot got dinged during the first inspection for staff eating where food is prepared.