Controversial Restaurant Shuts Its Doors

Royal Buffet, which offered a smorgasbord of Chinese, American, Italian and Japanese food for the past nine years, has gone out of business.

The restaurant, located in the Big Y Plaza on Palomba Drive, closed abruptly within the last few weeks. A large sign in the window indicates the 7,000 square foot facility is available for lease, and a paper sign in the doorway says, "Closed - not opening in the future."

Phone messages left by Enfield Patch were not returned by business owner Hong Shi, or by a representative from Devcon Enterprises, Inc., the leasing agent.

A check of the files on Royal Buffet at the North Central District Health Department on Monday showed the restaurant had been cited numerous times in the past for health code violations.

On Oct. 1, 2010, an inspector from the health department gave the restaurant a poor score of 54 out of a possible 100; that score improved greatly upon a re-inspection a month later.

During another inspection performed on March 14 of this year, the restaurant was again found to contain many violations of health standards. A visit by inspector Steven Denesha on April 6 found some of the violations had been corrected, but others had not, including: food not covered properly; food containers stored on the floor; inadequate utensils; and food equipment and utensils which were not clean.

Denesha granted a 30-day extension for Shi to correct the remaining violations, but the owner responded with a handwritten letter to the health department, dated April 18, asking for the scheduled May 6 inspection to be put off until June. "The reason is I have enough time for prepare and repair and correction, the same time I can save enough fund to do it," the letter said.

Shi had owned Royal Buffet since Jan. 2009. The restaurant opened in 2002, and had been cited under the previous ownership for cockroach infestation in late 2006, according to the health department file.