The owner of a Bury restaurant which received a zero-star food hygiene rating last year and is now at the centre of a viral video has spoken out.
Olive Restaurant and Wine Bar, on Hall Street in Walshaw, opened its doors two years ago after being closed for nine months due to a rebrand.
Food influencer Just Jack TV visited the establishment to try out its food offering and left a less-than-savoury review.
The content creator is known for sharing casual “honest review” style videos of takeaways in Lancashire and Greater Manchester with his 21,000 TikTok followers.
In a video posted on Sunday night (March 15), he could be seen eating in a parked car from foil containers.
He started with pancakes topped with bacon, which he later refused to finish and said it "smelled like dog s**t", before trying a portion of salt and pepper chips and a margarita pizza.
Speaking on the pizza, he said that it had a ‘good crunch’ but that the marinara sauce was "terrible", and that the chips "weren’t bad" but "didn’t taste like anything".
His overall verdict was that "for pub slash restaurant prices, it wasn’t that bad" but gave the Olive a 2.5 out of 10 rating.
The video was viewed more than 58,000 times on Facebook and attracted a lively debate in the comments section, with some defending the restaurant and others sharing their own negative experiences.
The content creator then shared a second video a day later, defending his opinions after saying that "people got nasty".
He said: “I just find it funny. It doesn’t bother me, but what gets me is I’ve done loads of these videos in the past, and no one’s ever said anything.
“People are allowed different opinions. I don’t think the food was great. You think it’s good. Let’s move on … it’s not the end of the world.”
Responding to the hygiene rating, Olive owner, Mark Kenyon, said: “We had an issue back in October when the Environmental Health Officer (EHO) came in.
“It wasn’t great, best practice didn’t happen, and we take responsibility for that.
"The chefs who were here at the time are not with us anymore; we made an instant decision.
“We had two weeks to make changes, or they’d have closed us down. We started sorting out the issues with reporting, labelling and containers.
"Inspectors came back on November 5 and ticked off what had been addressed.
“It’s not like we were not chopping chicken in the car park. We took a hit and are making positive steps to getting it back to where it was.
“We’ve been trying to build this business up from scratch, and it’s been tough in this climate.”
Mark, who runs the restaurant with his daughter Olivia, shared that hygiene inspectors are due to visit again next month and hopes for a better outcome.
In response to the review, he added: “Everyone has opinions. We’ve had so much support since opening and are a family-run business with loyal, regular customers.
“There are two sides to every story. We’ve addressed the inspection issues, we’re using local suppliers, supporting local jobs and want to make this work.
“I’m always more than happy for him (Just Jack TV) or any customer to come in and have a chat about this or anything else.”
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