Friday, December 15, 2006

300 Sick; Castleton Olive Garden Closed by Officials

In what started as a few people reporting food poisoning, health officials have closed a northside Olive Garden after more than 300 have now reported falling ill. Those who are reporting typical food poisoning symptoms reportedly ate at the restaurant between last Saturday and Monday and were sick within 24-36 hours. Most were ill by Tuesday and Wednesday and outside reports say a few cases have been hospitalized.

Health officials first said they believed a few employees had come to work with flu-like illnesses, but it's clear that something involved in much of the Castleton restaurant's food was either contaminated or spoiled. Most interesting to me was one report where a patron who fell ill on Tuesday said seven of the eight people in their party were sick after his wife's birthday party but the only thing they all had was "a little cake".

The Marion County Health Department checked out the restaurant on Tuesday when reports first started coming in of illness and found no violations. As the number of sick climbed from 165 reports to over 300 today, they closed the restaurant today until a cause of the illness is determined. The good news is that it doesn't seem to be e.coli, but a more run-of-the-mill food poisoning. (Of course, if you've had food poisoning and most of us had, you know it's never run-of-the-mill. It's pretty miserable.)

If you ate at the restaurant and are ill or if you have leftovers in your fridge at home from a meal there over the weekend, contact the Marion County Health Department.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thats what you get for eating at a trashy chain like Olive Garden!