COLUMBUS, Ga. - Three Columbus food service locations received B grades of 88 during health inspections Monday and Tuesday, Oct. 26-27, while five others earned perfect scores of 100. Inspectors documented handwashing and food storage issues at Players, missing supplies and pink residue on ice machines at AC Hotel - Columbus, and food temperature and equipment issues at El Carrizo. Each inspection is a snapshot of one visit, and several of the items were corrected while inspectors were on site.

Monday and Tuesday brought 12 inspections, which averaged 95.33, according to the Columbus Times restaurant inspection database. Counting the 13 Thursday and Friday inspections from Oct. 22-23, which were already included in our Oct. 17-23 inspection report, the database holds 25 inspections from Oct. 22 through Oct. 27. Those 25 visits produced 22 A grades, three B grades, 13 perfect scores and an average of 97.04, with no C or U grades.

3 Locations Received B Grades of 88

Players, 1500 54th St. - 88 B

Players received an 88 during its Oct. 26 inspection, up from an 84 on April 28. Inspectors reported "a cup stored" in the handwashing sink in the bar area and several food items stored in pans in the reach-in cooler and prep top cooler in the main kitchen. Both issues were corrected on site.

Inspectors also documented food containers near the fryers in the main kitchen "lacking labels to properly identify the name of food, spices, or sauce." The facility lacked handwashing signs at the bar handsink and in both the men's and women's restrooms, and neither issue was corrected on site. None of the listed violations was marked as a repeat.

Players has received B grades in seven of its nine inspections recorded since March 2022, including each of its last six. Its most recent A was a 90 on Dec. 27, 2023. No follow-up inspection was in the database as of Oct. 28, so its latest recorded score remains 88.

AC Hotel - Columbus, 1225 Broadway - 88 B

AC Hotel - Columbus received an 88 on Oct. 27, down from a 96 on April 30. Inspectors documented no hand-drying provisions at the handwashing sink next to the oven in the main kitchen and at the handwashing sink in the front food service area. Both were corrected on site, but inspectors marked the violation as a repeat.

The report also documented "pink residue on both ice machines located in the main kitchen's dry storage area." Inspectors recorded no displayed inspection report, no irreversible registering temperature indicator for the mechanical warewashing machine and no test kit for the three-compartment in the main kitchen area. Those issues were not corrected on site.

The hotel's previous B was an 89 on April 12, 2024. It then received four consecutive A grades of 95, 90, 94 and 96 before the latest inspection. The database did not show a follow-up inspection as of Oct. 28.

El Carrizo, 6575 Whittlesey Blvd., Building C - 88 B

El Carrizo received an 88 during its Oct. 27 inspection, down from a 90 on March 10. Inspectors documented "time/temperature control for safety foods in cooler drawer below grill temping above 41 degrees F." The violation was marked as a repeat and corrected on site.

Inspectors also reported that the facility lacked an irreversible registering temperature indicator for its mechanical warewashing machine. That issue was not corrected on site. No follow-up inspection was in the database as of Oct. 28, so the Oct. 27 visit remains its latest recorded score.

El Carrizo previously received a B grade of 81 on Jan. 27, 2023. It then earned A grades of 90, 97, 95 and 90 before the latest B. Its database history begins with a 92 in March 2022.

5 New Perfect Scores, Mostly at Schools

Five of the 12 Monday and Tuesday inspections ended with a perfect 100. Tipsy Bar & Grill100, 1780 Williams Road, Units B & C, was the only restaurant among them, scoring 100 on Oct. 26. The other four were food service kitchens rather than restaurants: Blanchard Elementary School100, 3512 Weems Road; Forrest Road Elementary School100, 6400 Forrest Road; and Jordan High School100, 3200 Howard Ave., all on Oct. 26, plus Stewart Community Home100, 1125 15th St., on Oct. 27.

13 Perfect Scores Since Oct. 22

Counting the Thursday and Friday visits, 13 of the 25 inspections since Oct. 22 earned a perfect 100, or 52 percent. Six came on Oct. 22, two on Oct. 23, four on Oct. 26 and one on Oct. 27. Six of the 13 were restaurants, listed in the table below, while the other seven were senior-living, school and community home kitchens.

The seven food service kitchens with 100s were the four listed above plus three senior-living kitchens inspected Oct. 22: Magnolia Manor Of Cols Assisted Living100, 2040 Warm Springs Road; Magnolia Manor Of Columbus - East, 2010 Warm Springs Road; and Magnolia Manor Of Columbus - West, 2000 Warm Springs Road. NY Habibi Deli's Oct. 23 inspection was its first in the Columbus Times database. All 13 of these locations received A grades.

Full List of the Other 9 A Grades

Nine more locations scored between 91 and 99 during the six-day span. Country's On Broad received the lowest A at 91, while Toasted earned a 99. The remaining seven locations received scores between 95 and 97.

Inspection Scores by Day

No inspections were recorded for the weekend in between. The 25 scores totaled 2,426 points, and 2,426 divided by 25 is 97.04. The 12 inspections on Monday and Tuesday totaled 1,144 points for an average of 95.33, with three B grades and five perfect scores. These calculations use the inspection scores recorded in the Columbus Times database.

How the Results Compare With 2025

During the same Thursday-through-Tuesday span a year earlier, Oct. 23-28, 2025, the database shows 18 inspections. All 18 received A grades, and the average score was 97.61. This year's span had seven more inspections and three B grades, with an average 0.57 points lower and an A-grade share of 88% instead of 100%.

Across 2026 through Oct. 27, the database recorded 1,155 inspections, including 1,055 A grades, 92 B grades and eight C grades. The overall average was 96.47, and about 91.3% of inspections received A grades. The latest six-day span's 88% A-grade share was below that year-to-date percentage, although its average score was higher.

What the Inspection Grades Mean

The grading scale assigns A grades to scores of 90 through 100, B grades to 80 through 89, C grades to 70 through 79 and U grades to 69 or below, so the three 88s fell two points below the A range. An inspection is a snapshot of one visit, not a measure of conditions at a location on any other day. The records identify which issues inspectors marked corrected on site and which were not corrected during the visit. Questions about individual inspections can be directed to Muscogee County Environmental Health at (706) 321-6170.

## How we did this Columbus Times analyzed its restaurant inspection database, which uses Georgia Department of Public Health food service inspection records for Muscogee County and imports records daily. We queried the database Oct. 28, 2026, covering inspections from Oct. 22 through Oct. 27, and calculated grade totals, daily averages, perfect-score percentages and comparisons with the same span in 2025. The database contained 5,007 inspections across 834 food service locations dating to Jan. 4, 2022, and its newest recorded inspection was dated Oct. 27, 2026. Readers can review the underlying inspection records at columbustimes.com/restaurants.