A rat fell from the ceiling and onto a customer’s menu at a Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant in Los Angeles.
A customer was visiting from Texas, and was at a Buffalo Wild Wings location in the Westchester neighborhood, when a rat dropped from the ceiling, according to a June 20 report from NBC4.
“You could hear something come down, and then plop, it lands on the table,” said Alisha Norman, via NBC4.
Norman posted a photo of the rat on Facebook lying on the menu after falling. NBC4 reported the rat is not dead in the photo.
“I knew the rat was going to be injured because it hit like a Mack truck,” Norman told NBC4. “Everybody was staring, because we were all in shock, because nobody believes that a rat fell from the ceiling in Buffalo Wild Wings.”
“He took two plates and then they just picked it up and dumped it in a bag,” Norman added. “It was terrible. It was disgusting.”
The manager told Norman that recent construction had attracted the vermin, and he tried to appease Norman by paying for her meal.
The shocked customer also took a photo standing outside of the restaurant, showing its “A” rating for health inspection.
Rodents Cause Chipotle Closure
A Chipotle location in Dallas closed down after a video of rodents inside the restaurant circulated on social media, reported the New York Post in 2017.
Customers there at the time the video was taken said the rodents fell from the ceiling, NBC DFW reported.
“If we would have been sitting at the table next to that it definitely would have fell on top of our food because it was literally right there,” said Daniela Ornelas, who was eating lunch with her boyfriend while the recording was being made, via NBC DFW.
“I just kept wondering what it was, and I kept looking around until I looked at the floor, and I saw three rats, and I ran,” Ornelas added.
A spokesperson for Chipotle indicated it was not necessarily a permanent closure. Quinn Kelsey said the Chipotle location “will reopen only when we are certain the building meets all Chipotle standards for operation,” NY Post reported.
The restaurant initially blamed the problem on a small structural issue.
“We learned yesterday that mice got into a restaurant,” reads a statement obtained by NBC DFW, “and we immediately contacted professionals who identified a small structural gap in the building as the likely access point. We’re having it repaired. Additionally, we reached out to the customer to make things right. This is an extremely isolated and rare incident and certainly not anything we’d ever want our customers to encounter.”
Nighttime Rodents Invade Philadelphia Restaurants
Inside Edition explored a number of restaurants in Philadelphia, shining flashlights through windows at night, to uncover the hidden world of rodents that come out after customers and staff all go home.
They discovered rodent issues at all restaurants they explored in the video report. Some of the restaurants had rodent problems despite claiming to pass inspections time and time again.
Most of the restaurants were local to Philadelphia, but even burger chain Shake Shack was not free of raiding nighttime rodents. Some owners didn’t think it was a big deal and that it was normal to have a few rodents around. Some seemed to not know about the rodents. Others simply did not want to speak with the Inside Edition investigators.
