At Joe's Bar, a freshly painted gate, mystery and, apparently, roaches

On Friday evening, we walked by the now-closed Joe's on East Sixth Street — hopeful that one of our favorite bars had reopened.

A worker had just finished up painting the bar's front gate. We stopped and asked if the bar was reopening. The worker looked startled, and said, "I didn't have anything to do with it. I didn't have anything to do with it." With that, he hurried inside the adjacent building leaving us wondering, To do with what?

The bar is still closed in the eyes of the DOH. On Oct. 5, the DOH hit them with 71 violation points. The DOH returned on Oct. 21, and found improvements, though there were still 32 violation points. There are two listed sanitary violations on the DOH website ("critical" violations are displayed in red):
1) Live roaches present in facility's food and/or non-food areas.
2) Facility not vermin proof. Harborage or conditions conducive to attracting vermin to the premises and/or allowing vermin to exist.