Officials from the State Health Department and the Weld County Department of Public Health and Environment believe the illness was acquired from an infected food handler at a franchised Qdoba Mexican restaurant in Firestone. Qdoba management and employees have been highly cooperative in the investigation.
The infected food handler is not working at the restaurant, does not have symptoms of the illness and will receive appropriate medical treatment. Additional testing of current and former employees will be completed to make sure no other individuals are confirmed with the illness.
“Typhoid fever is very rare,” Dr. Mark E. Wallace, MD MPH, Executive Director of the Weld County Health Department, said. “The good news is the illness is treatable with antibiotics. Simply having eaten at the restaurant is not a reason to see your healthcare provider. Only those currently exhibiting symptoms should contact their healthcare provider.”
Two people were hospitalized. All three have recovered from the illness.
The Health Department has not received any reports of sick individuals since mid-October. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has issued
Due to that the county’s Environmental Health Director Angelo Bellomo called a “software bug,” information about closures that occur during complaint investigations were previously unavailable on the county’s online inspection database.
Rolled out in 2013, the software, Envision Connect, tracks inspection data for retail food facility, food truck, housing, and swimming pool inspections, but it does not track investigations into public complaints about restaurants.
As of Oct. 21, all restaurant closures, which can occur during routine and owner-initiated inspections, complaint investigations and reinspections, are posted online, according to a health department report submitted to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Friday.
“We’ve plugged the gap,” Bellomo said.
The fix is one of several recommendations being implemented after a Los Angeles News Group review of nearly two years of restaurant inspection data found the county’s 17-year-old grading system allows many restaurants and markets to operate with major health threats and gives those facilities high health grades.
Friday’s report is the second monthly progress report on the implementation of those recommendations.
Ben Thankum, the proprietor of Lao Thai Kitchen in Holt before it closed, allowed cockroaches to breed and die inside food tubs, on floors, walls and benches.
He was also charged with a failure to ensure clean surfaces, letting contaminated material spread in the kitchen and poor food storage procedures.
The restaurant was inspected by food safety officers in February 2014 who became concerned food sold at the shop would be unsafe for consumption.
Thankum appeared before the ACT Magistrates Court on Friday and was charged $2000 for each violation and ordered to pay court costs.
Court documents reveal the kitchen had fallen into disrepair with dead cockroaches left in dishwashing areas.
The documents also revealed food was stored in washing-up areas and sauces left on benches for eight hours at a time.
Ice buildup posed dangers in chest freezers with uncovered foods with exhaust fans clogged with grease.
Special magistrate Maria Doogan said the restaurant had since been sold and Thankum had begun working in a different occupation.
The directorate of food and drugs administration (FDA) on Friday raided a bakery at Agaccaim for supplying ‘stale’ chicken rolls that were ordered for a religious function at Sodovim-Verna. After consuming the rolls, several people had taken ill as a result of food poisoning.
FDA director Salim Veljee informed that the officials visited the bakery on Friday morning and found that it was being operated under unhygienic conditions and there was no proper facility for storing raw material and the same was kept on the floor.
“The owner of the bakery admitted to having supplied the food items for a religious function at Sadovim in Verna,” stated Veljee adding, the bakery owner was immediately directed to shut it down till all the defects observed by the food safety officers are rectified and verified by the office of the directorate of food and drugs administration.
“The food and drugs administration officials collected samples of egg patties, cakes as well as chicken rolls and the same were sent to the laboratory for microbiological analysis. Further action can be initiated only after the receipt of the microbiological analysis of the samples sent by the police as well as the FDA officials,” Veljee said.
The Skagit County Department of Public Health in Washington state announced Friday that it has closed Chipotle Mexican Grill in Burlington pending an investigation of several E. coli infections among recent diners.
Of five cases under investigation since Oct. 15, four individuals were hospitalized, according to the health department news release. Results of specimens sent to the state health lab for analysis are expected early next week.
CBC News reports that food kept too warm or too cold, dirty utensils and one live animal have all been found in Windsor and Essex County restaurants within the past year, according to a CBC News analysis of Windsor-Essex County Health Unit reports (that’s in Ontario, Canada).
Documents provided to CBC News by the health unit show 1,795 health and safety infractions at 540 locations where food was served between Oct. 2014 and 2015.
The health unit regularly inspects restaurants and places where food is served in Windsor and Essex County. The frequency of the inspections depends on how high the risk is for food contamination at each place. According to the health unit, a full-service restaurant is inspected at least three times a year.
“We are enforcers, but we’re trying to educate first,” Elaine Bennett, a public health inspector with the health unit said in an interview with CBC News. “We’re working with people to make sure they’re not causing food-borne illness in the community.”
Bennett has been a health inspector for the past 15 years.
“Ultimately I’m working for the public to make sure their dining experience is not going to send them to the hospital,” she said.
“The machine had freaking mold on the catcher and the employees were touching the floor with the same hands they handled the doughnuts with! One employee even dropped a spatula, picked it up and proceeded to scrape the belt the doughnuts were coming off!” wrote Nicole on her YouTube clip about Krispy Kreme Donuts, Consumerist reports. “After expressing my concern with the supervisor he shrugged me off.”
To document her experience, Ms. Nicole posted a video on YouTube of what seem to be bugs crawling around donut glaze in the shop, and of course the clip went viral online.
Metro reports that it was the very company that launched the investigation on Krispy Kreme’s donuts, though they’re doing it “through a third party” to keep lack of objectivity become an issue when it’s time to face facts.
The company’s Facebook page officially apologized to Ms. Nicole over her unpleasant experience visiting Krispy Kreme, adding that they were looking further into this.
The Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre is hiring out the dining room in its Plaza Gallery used by world leaders at the global powerfest.
Centre general manager Bob O’Keeffe tells your diarist that guests can have the same menu and even sit in the same chairs used by Obama, Russian President Vladimir Putin and other leaders.
O’Keeffe recalls food for the leaders’ meals had to pass through several security check points before reaching the dining room.
Yeah, but they don’t do micro testing and aren’t capable of testing for idiocracy. This is the 21st century, not the 14th when food tasters were employed to check for poisons.
This same Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre was host of two Salmonella outbreaks earlier this year that sickened at least 254 people, including school principals at a conference. In response, the Centre struck custard from the menu.
It was probably raw eggs that made all those folks sick, but us Brisbane residents will never know because once an outbreak is publicly declared, it disappears. Maybe into the courts. Maybe into embarrassment-land.
I know Presidents of the U.S. have a food safety detail and would never allow raw eggs into a meal served to the Commander-in-Chief, but school principals?
Why not.
Make the full menu public and let us food safety types identify possible risks. I don’t care where Putin or Obama sat – possible skid marks – I care if your food is going to make me barf like those other 254 people.
St. Tropez-inspired beats pound over the chattering of a stylish crowd in suits, leather jackets, and high heels. The Crate & Barrel-esque lounge at the CityCenter DC restaurant is packed. Even more people, martini glasses in tow, hover around the edges of the 25-seat, U-shaped bar.
What salmonella? On this recent Thursday, it’s as if the widely reported outbreak that sickened and hospitalized diners here in early September never happened.
Bar plans foiled, I ask about a table for two.
“We’re fully committed to reservations right now,” says the hostess.
I ask about the wait. She looks at her computer screen and contorts her face in all sorts of unpromising ways.
“Forty-five minutes.”
My husband and I wander around CityCenter DC for a bit. Centrolina, Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse, DBGB Kitchen and Bar, and Mango Tree all have seats available.
Forty-five minutes pass. No word from Fig & Olive. An additional 45 minutes pass. Still no word. We head back to check on the status of our table. Without explanation, the hostess fidgets with her computer some more, then finally leads us to the crowded dining room upstairs.
During the first few minutes of our dinner, the couple next to us sends an order of roasted potatoes back to the kitchen. Four women on our other side wait at least 10 minutes before the server even greets their table.
At our table, empty water glasses go unfilled for long stretches, and the staff fails to take away the appetizer plates before plopping the entrees on the table. Our server, though friendly, forgets my husband’s beer. Only after the main course arrives does he acknowledge the error and offer to remove the drink from the check. Even then, it’s not until our meal is nearly over that the beer actually arrives. It’s warm. The chicken is dried out, and the paella is fine but unmemorable. Our total for two appetizers and two entrees comes to $113.60 with tax and tip.
On the way out, I spot one of the cast members from The Real Housewives of D.C.
It’s hard to say whether all these diners are very forgiving or merely ignorant of the salmonella outbreak that shut down the restaurant. As of Oct. 23, the D.C. Department of Health had confirmed 34 cases of the bacterial infection, which causes diarrhea, fever, and vomiting. It can be fatal. The agency interviewed an additional 209 people who dined at the establishment and reported illnesses—and that’s just in D.C. Fig & Olive also allegedly infected diners at its restaurants in West Hollywood and possibly New York, prompting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to open a multi-state investigation into the restaurant chain.
Foodborne salmonella outbreaks are infrequent. This is only the fifth documented outbreak in D.C. in five years, according to DOH.
If the outbreak began with Fig & Olive, it now appears that some of these most recent salmonella cases could have been avoided: A hospital notified the D.C. Department of Health that multiple Fig & Olive diners had been sickened two days before health officials actually shut down the restaurant. In the interim, more people reported becoming ill. Some also alerted Fig & Olive to their food poisoning days before it was shut down. It’s unclear what the restaurant did to try to fix the problem before the health department intervened. Representatives for Fig & Olive declined to comment for this story.
In the aftermath of the outbreak, four local victims have filed lawsuits against Fig & Olive, with additional lawsuits coming out of California. One lawyer says he has as many as two dozen more coming; another says he has about 15 more clients.
A CDC spokesperson says the agency hasn’t identified the exact source of the infections. The D.C. Department of Forensic Sciences tested 84 environmental and food samples. So far, none have tested positive for salmonella, although it’s rare to isolate a particular ingredient in an outbreak. Health department officials say the common denominators among Fig & Olive’s victims include truffle mushroom croquettes and truffle fries. The restaurant has since removed all dishes with truffle oil from its menu.
DNA Info reports two neighborhood restaurants were temporarily shut down by the New York City Health Department for rats and roaches, according to city records.
McQuaids Public House, an Irish bar and restaurant at 589 Eleventh Ave., and the Vintner Cafe, an Italian joint at 671 Ninth Ave., were forced to close their doors for several days last week, according to records.
On Oct. 23, Health Department inspectors found evidence of a rats at the Vintner Cafe and temporarily barred the restaurant from dishing up its signatures sandwiches and salads. The cafe has been cited three times in the past for mice in the facility, but the rats were a new violation.
Vintner passed a subsequent inspection on Monday and was allowed to reopen with its grade pending, until further inspections prove it can keep its facility clean.
A manager at the cafe who would not give his name said the rats were only in a storage facility and that nearby construction had brought on the recent infestation. They’ve since hired an exterminator to take care of the problem, he said.
“There’s not food there or anything,” the manager said. “It was just that part. The rest was fine.”
At McQuaids Public House, health inspectors found roaches during an Oct. 20 visit, marking the fourth time the vermin were seen in the eatery in two years, according to health department records.
It was allowed to reopen with a pending grade after three subsequent inspections found workers had cleared up the problem.
Officials from the State Health Department and the Weld County Department of Public Health and Environment believe the illness was acquired from an infected food handler at a franchised Qdoba Mexican restaurant in Firestone. Qdoba management and employees have been highly cooperative in the investigation.
