A month after a Lubbock, TX Cheddar’s food handler was identified as having developed a hepatitis A infection, the CEO of the company was talking about the incident.

Executive Kelly Baltes employed the oft-used we’ve been serving lots of food for a long time with no incident message – but missing was an apology. Even though there wasn’t much the company could have done to avoid the exposure, showing empathy and saying sorry for potentially exposing customers to a pretty serious virus can go a long way.

Who knows, maybe Baltes expressed apologies to the journalist, but the message definitely didn’t come through.

"In Lubbock, we’ve taken care of about 5 million guests in our 14 years." Cheddar’s CEO Kelly Baltes says his Lubbock location is not going anywhere.

"Well, it’s been a little easier, probably, to get a table on the weekend nights the last couple weeks," said Baltes.
After last month’s Hepatitis A scare, the CEO is speaking out for the first time. "I understand the caution people have when they see something like this, people are generally going to take a cautious approach," said Baltes.

After a part-time server alerted the management he was infected with the virus, about 2700 diners had to be vaccinated. But Baltes says the employee was never touching any food. "This person was a server here, not in food production, they had a very limited role in that. This virus can not be passed on to someone in casual contact or hand shakes or coughs or anything like that."

Baltes stated that the food handler in question was a server and not heavily involved in food preparation. My guess is that the server, as is commonplace in food service, filled glasses with ice, garnished beverages with lemons, and may have been involved in transfering leftover meals to takeout containers. In my experience, servers also can get involved with stuff like salad prep. Although not touching every meal, there’s definitely a chance of exposure.

Another thing that stuck out in Baltes’ comments was that Hep A can’t be passed through "casual contact or hand shakes."

Not so fast. As I learned from Mallrats, If you’ve got a couple of folks who aren’t models of good hygiene, poop-to-hand and then hand-to-mouth is definitely a possible route for infection.