As of this article’s publication date, the VA hospital located in Aurora Colorado is under federal investigation for serving expired/unsafe food in their cafeteria and coffee shop. Between the evidence that was collected by former employee Ralph Robb that fueled the investigation by the US Department of Veterans Affairs Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and the fact that someone was hospitalized with a foodborne illness in August 2024, it seems these concerns are warranted.

During this winter season, I reached out to Robb and both current and former employees of the Veterans Canteen Services (VCS) subsidiary that is in charge of all the food served to the general public—including veterans, doctors, and other caregivers—to find out what’s really going on at the VCS.

Sadly, it’s incredibly alarming.

Between December 2022 and August 2024, Robb spent half of his tenure at the VCS in Aurora as a grill cook in the cafeteria before moving over to the Patriot Brew coffee shop. He claims that every day he worked there was very difficult due to the instructions passed down by his manager, VCS Chief of Canteen Operations Forrest Hardy.

Said Robb, “Forrest always had a standing rule that we were never allowed to leave the grill area as long as there were customers in line. Because we had so many doctors and patients that were on vastly different schedules (with surgeries and whatnot), there was always someone wanting something ‘fresh,’ and so there was never really any downtime.”

Robb said that because of this rule, many daily tasks got ignored. He said that by far, the most neglected piece of regularly used equipment was “the fryer. It was disgusting. Because everybody else refused to do a complete cleaning—something that should have been done every week or so but never was because it was a total pain in the ass—the filth would build. Even the daily filter would be left alone. Eventually, when we would put something in it, like fries, a giant plume of debris would coat everything; the fries looked like they were dropped down a chimney.”

Robb said that because he was the only employee who would actually clean the fryers, this deep clean would only happen once a month.

Due to the guilt he felt over serving unsafe food to those who put their lives on the line for our freedoms, Robb requested to be moved to the coffee shop. “I thought that because there wasn’t any cooking of food, I would avoid having safety violations thrown in my face on the daily. I was wrong.”

Though the coffee shop was at the opposite end of the main hospital walkway, Robb said the milk used to make various lattes and other drinks was stored in the same refrigeration unit that was used by the kitchen. “I was down there two times a week, at least. It was during this time that I saw some of the worst food offenses.”

After his father died in September 2023—a Korean War veteran who loved the VA—Robb knew he needed to do everything he could to stop the Aurora VCS from continuing to serve substandard food. It was then he began taking pictures of all the health violations he witnessed.

“The thing I saw most often was out-of-date meats being repurposed after expiration or meats that were held improperly for long periods of time. From week-old ground beef being used in sloppy joes to fish that had been left uncovered for four or five days and put into tacos, nothing was wasted if a profit could be made.”

Robb said this kind of behavior wasn’t just relegated to the kitchen; the coffee shop was also a victim of these food crimes. He said the most common of these health infractions involved the “sniff test.”

“The ‘sniff test’ happened a lot because the manager who was in charge of getting our milk—Assistant Chief Kim Grisby—would often forget that an order was requested because some of our milk was about to outdate. Once it would go past, we would bring it to her attention and she would legitimately tell us to give it a sniff before we’d serve it. Now, I understand that this is something we’ve all done … IN OUR HOMES, but not for the general public. Are you kidding me?”

Of course, with this many violations occurring out in the open, you would think that some kind of state or federal health department would put the kibosh on the kitchen until everything was up to code, right?

Unfortunately, you would be wrong.

During my interview with Robb, he told me about how VCS president James Lahey had visited in May 2024 and witnessed another health inspection failure due to expired foods. Shortly after this visit, the rumor mill began to run amok and everyone was worried they were going to lose their jobs. Because the fear was palpable, Hardy held a VCS-wide meeting that required mandatory attendance from all staff. During this meeting, Hardy explained how everything was going to be fine.

Robb—and two other employees present at the meeting that confirmed this story—said that Hardy laid it all out. That a third-party company like Whole Health would do an inspection and if VCS failed, they’d do an “audit.” Audits would occur until they’d pass the inspection and then a company called Ecosure would do an official inspection knowing they’d meet the necessary parameters. The inspections done by Ecosure were the only ones recorded officially.

It seems this program has worked as between 12/22 and 05/24 there were at least four reported audits, but only one was actually recorded per a FOIA request.

The straw that broke the camel’s back came when cockroaches were spotted in the coffee shop in the middle of June. Immediately, a mass text was sent out to all the coffee shop employees, along with everyone in management, including Hardy. Hardy told everyone that he would get right on it and have them dealt with.

Nothing was done, and another cockroach spotting occurred almost a month after the initial report. Robb couldn’t take any more and put in his two weeks.

“I couldn’t do it anymore. By this point, I had been accumulating evidence for almost a year and had started contacting the various government whistleblower agencies in March [2024], with no success. Knowing that Forrest had completely refused to get rid of those bugs was too much. Whether his motivations were financial or something else, I don’t know.”

I asked Robb if he knew if there was still a cockroach infestation at the coffee shop. “I’m not sure if/when an exterminator was called in. I’ve heard that one came out about a month ago, and I’ve spoken to people who currently work there who claim to have seen them running around as recently as the middle of December. So, I don’t know.” This means that there had been cockroaches in the coffee shop for at least four or five months.

At this point I decided to reach out to current employees to see if anything was ever done about the infestation, and if what Robb had experienced was common. The good news is, that I was able to speak to a current employee/lead with multiple years of experience who goes by the name of “Gerald.” The bad news is, that what Robb encountered was the norm.

The first thing I wanted to know centered around the milk; were there explicit instructions given to/by those in management to sell outdated milk? According to Gerald, the sniff test had been normalized as, “There were a couple of occasions that we had to use milk that was past date because Kim forgot to get milk.”

I then wanted to know if this could have been intentional. I wanted to know what Gerald thought the primary motivation between the outdated milk being sold and the numerous proteins that were repurposed well after expiration was. Their answer was simple, “100% money!”

And what about the cockroaches? Said Gerald, “I believe it was about a month ago that the girls covered up everything in the coffee shop so they could come in and do a proper fumigation. I personally have never seen a roach in the coffee shop, but I did see the pictures.”

When I asked Gerald about the health inspections, their answer spoke volumes about the level of complacency found at the VCS. “[After] the visit from Mr. Lahey we had weekly inspections from the hospital team to make sure we were following the hospital’s food safety standards.” They said that though these standards lasted for a little while, everything would eventually fall into disarray. “[I] ended up getting [sick] and was out for a week. When I got back, they had moved a lot of the staff around, leaving food short-staffed. Everything I had done was practically thrown out the window and the staff was back to being miserable.”

They continued, “After your story came out, I was summoned to the kitchen to walk through and make sure everything was in order because they were coming to do an audit. Let’s just say, it was not where it needed to be.”

After speaking with Gerald, I reached out to James Lahey and the official VA press representatives and asked them about everything I had learned. These were the questions and their responses:

I want to focus on the statement, “The safety and health of patients and employees was at no point compromised due to the failed inspection and remediation plan implementation.”

It simply isn’t true.

In August 2024, a member of the VA medical staff named “Janet” ate at the cafeteria and was hospitalized a few hours later due to severe gastritis brought on by a foodborne illness. They were in that hospital room for four days, suffering through unimaginable pain and stress.

Once Janet returned to work, they found out about the expired food issues and went into action. Once they got the necessary paper/documents together surrounding the purchase and subsequent hospitalization, they submitted it to their workman’s comp official with the understanding that due to the sensitive nature of the information, only people directly involved with workman’s comp be allowed to see it.

The HR representative took a different approach and sent everything over to Hardy in the kitchen. As soon as Janet found this out, they immediately withdrew their workman’s comp claim; they felt violated. The more I read through the email chain between Janet and the HR representative, the more surprised I was at the level of excuses presented by the HR rep when it came to justifying this course of action.

What makes this situation just that much worse comes from the fact that a week after their withdrawal, Janet was told by a kitchen lead that their claim and its contents were the subject of a management meeting, with everyone to hear their business.

This is how we treat our nation’s heroes and their caregivers.

Look, I’m going to be honest; what’s going on at the Aurora VA is a public health issue. I’m unsure how long the federal investigation will take, but until their investigation has been completed, I advise anyone and everyone reading this to avoid eating there in any capacity.

Once the investigation is complete, a full report will follow.