Rats No Longer? Barzini’s, UWS Grocer That Failed Inspection, Strikes Deal to Reopen
State regulators are requiring the owners and employees of the 24-hour grocery store to complete food-safety courses. The store must also pass subsequent inspections and pay outstanding fines.
| 07 Feb 2025 | 08:18
Barzini’s has struck a settlement that will allow it to reopen after it grievously failed a health inspection, as long as it complies with future inspections and mandates that its employees take food-safety courses. (
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Barzini’s, the 24-hour Upper West Side grocery store that failed a health inspection in rather gruesome fashion and refused to close, has now been given a pathway to safely resuming business.
According to a settlement with state regulators filed in court on Feb. 5, Barzini’s can sell its wares to Upper West Siders only if it: passes inspections, mandates food-safety courses for its employees, and pays outstanding penalties owed to the NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets.
The initial closure occurred after constituents of UWS City Council member Gale Brewer informed her of rather shocking conditions prevailing in the shop, leading her to ask inspectors to stop by.
What they found was so appalling that they earned a restraining order from a judge demanding that the store close on Jan. 13. Which it did—but only until Jan. 20. Then after a week of defying the court order, which earned them a contempt-of-court finding, they had re-shuttered the business by Jan. 27. Many of the more outlandish violations, which were shared in court papers reviewed by The Spirit, involved animals that shouldn’t be in a grocery store—namely cockroaches, rats, and grain beetles—running rampant and infiltrating produce.
In order to comply with the settlement, Barzini’s must now ensure that such health threats (dubbed “critical deficiencies”) are eliminated, which will be judged in multiple visits by inspectors. If they fail an inspection, they’ll need to submit an action plan that will address the deficiencies.
If the owners both fail an inspection and flout a closure order, they’ll be held in contempt of court again, and fined $500 for each day they sell food. The NYC Sheriff’s office will also be instructed to padlock the store for 30 days. As the settlement states, Barzini’s reportedly agreed that the “aforementioned punishment for contempt is reasonable in consideration of the health and safety risk . . . presented to the public by continuing to operate [the store].”
The store’s owners also have a “total outstanding balance of $14,400 in penalties” that it will need to pay down, which will be done in installments of $1,600 between this April and next August.
Furthermore, all Barzini’s employees will need to complete a food-safety course. Other text in the settlement indicates that this course may involve “the importance of Store management being trained on good manufacturing practice, hazard analysis, and risk-based preventative controls for human food to ensure the health and safety of the public.”
Supervisors must attend, and provide satisfactory proof of passing, the course before March 28. Workers with lesser roles have until April 28 to complete it. If any employee fails to do so by those dates, Barzini’s will need to pay a $400 fine. If either April 11 or May 11 passes by and said employee still hasn’t passed the course, that fine will ratchet up to $500 a day.
Reached for comment by The Spirit, Council member Brewer immediately noted that she was “very excited” a settlement had been struck, which meant that her neighborhood wouldn’t lose a grocery store.
For posterity’s sake, Brewer also relayed some of the horror stories she had heard about the store, such as one constituent finding holes left by rats in a loaf of bread. An even more frightful anecdote involved a rat literally falling into a shopper’s hands.