JOHNSTOWN — On Friday afternoon, people looking for lunch in downtown Johnstown passed by the once-popular Szechuan Restaurant and, seeing its shuttered doors and dark "open" sign, kept walking.
Michele Stefanik, a passer-by, said she was surprised to hear the restaurant was shut down.
"It always looked fine and it always seemed OK," she said. "Like, I never thought there would be a problem here with it being shut down."
At first, she thought she might go back there to eat some time, until a 6 News reporter told her they found 30 roaches inside the building.
"Um, yeah," she said. "I don't like that."
The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture didn't like it much either, slapping a "CLOSED BY ORDER" sign on the front door after an inspection on Thursday.
By Friday morning, another handwritten sign had been put up under the state's sign, which, by law, has to stay posted.
This sign said "Sorry for inconvenience. We are closed due to kitchen reconstruction!" This note was signed "-Szechuan-."
Shannon Powers, a spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture, said they take situations like this very seriously.
"That's because there's an imminent threat to human health," Powers said an a phone interview with 6 News on Friday.
This closure, Powers said, isn't something that happens often. It takes a serious infraction to prompt something like this.
"Only a tiny percentage of our inspections end up with a restaurant being closed," Powers said.
Szechuan can reopen only after the Department of Agriculture clears it following another inspection.
To be clear, the restaurant that was closed down is Szechuan Restaurant in downtown Johnstown. This is a different restaurant, under different management entirely, than the similarly-named Szechuan East in Richland Township.
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