AUBURN — The popular Lotus Restaurant on Center Street opted to voluntarily shut down for several days to undergo a deep cleaning and have a new pest service come in, after city and state health officials met there Thursday morning.

The restaurant had five cockroach complaints since November, two of those in the past week, according to city records.

The first complaint came from owner Jimmy Wu reporting that the restaurant had turned away a contaminated delivery of produce in early November. Despite a routine contracted pest control regime and a regular nighttime cleaning crew, the bugs still got in.

Wu chose to go public with the issue earlier this week with an online letter letting customers know what was happening and apologizing for the issue. Wu’s parents used to own Hunan House and he’s been in the restaurant business locally for decades.

“Something like this should not have happened,” Wu said. “We’re going to try to be as aggressive as we can to get rid of it. My customers are not just customers, they’re like family to us,” so being straightforward felt like the right thing, he said.

Lotus opened in 2014 with 180 seats and last year added 100 more in an expansion.

Eric Cousens, the city’s deputy director of Economic and Community Development, who praised how the restaurant’s owners handled the situation, said customer complaints about cockroaches came in Nov. 25 and Dec. 28, 2016, and June 14 and June 19, each time prompting a city inspection.

The city did not step in to shut the restaurant down because Wu has been cooperative, doing everything an inspector has asked, Cousens said.

“So far, they have not found that the public’s health was at risk,” he added. “This is something that restaurants in general have to deal with. (Wu) really does take it seriously. He immediately acted and had a new pest control company giving him quotes the same day we received the last complaint.”

Cousens said Wu would be moving all of the restaurant’s supplies into a storage container while it’s shut down.

Wu estimated he would reopen next Tuesday or Wednesday after a fogging, followed by a commercial cleaning.

“It makes me very sad something like this happens. We have more than 10 people in our kitchen. It should have been caught,” Wu said.

“Buffet restaurants were always looked down on before,” he said. “They always (tried) to grab customers with quantity, quantity, quantity and (and because they’re) cheap. When I opened my restaurant, I wanted to raise the bar and really bring in a new level of excellence in this industry. I feel like I’ve done it, but I’ve let everybody down when something like this occurs.”

Comments on the restaurant’s Facebook page have been largely supportive, with notes like: “I’m sure I speak for many customers when I say the honesty is appreciated, the situation clearly understood, and you have our patience and understanding. Please don’t let a few bad reviews affect your spirits!”

Cousens said Little Ceasars Pizza, which is in the same building, should not have to close, but officials were inspecting it Thursday afternoon to be sure.

kskelton@sunjournal.com

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