People getting sick

Recently a couple friends ate at a well known local restaurant that they frequented for many years. Both had prime rib and became extremely sick for several days. As a professional chef for many years I wondered what happened, did the restaurant hold the prime rib for too long? I know that when I have prepared prime rib it takes several hours to cook so I have always cooked three or four ahead of time and kept them warm in a hot box throughout the night. In all of my years of experience I have never had anyone call back that they were sick. So now I wonder if the prime rib my friends ate came in contact with a cutting board with bacteria on it?

Really would appreciate some feedback from other chefs out there. Do you think that it more likely that the prime rib wasn't held properly and ended up in the danger zone or that it came in contact with a dirty cutting board? Also what do you think is a restaurants responsiblity to a customer when they get sick?

Thanks!

[m brown]

What else did they have? Cheese dressing on salad? Unwashed salad, Custard dessert, tainted beer, pate? It could have been undercooked eggs in the caesar salad dressing. List the whole meal so we can find the culpret.

[youla]

this is a really interesting topic..perhaps we could hear some more stories of food poisoning to make people in the industry more aware and basically to keep people on the lookout for dangerous situations. one case I heard of was so complicated and it was not entirely the chefs fault...a waiter was taking out a steak dinner which he dropped on the floor ....little did he know he dropped it on exactly the same spot a small child had dribbled some food from her mouth onto...the waiter [not wanting to risk the wrath of the chef] picked up the steak took it back to a discreet place and repositioned all the food on the plate...now as the story goes the little girl was quite sick with something and the steak picked up enough of the bacteria to make the client extremely ill for quite some time...and the establishment got sued...I dont quite know how they worked out that it was the same spot the toddler dribbled on that the steak landed on...but it did come to light...it also brings up an interesting point about the waiter bad enough that he picked something off the floor and served it! but the question is would he have done it if front of house and the kitchen had a better relationship....I have a few more interesting ones...if any one is interested....ps this did not happen at my place of work but is a well known one in oz.

[Pete]

There are many points at which these people could have gotten sick. What else did they eat, both at the restaurant and for the whole day previous? What temp. was the prime rib? MR, Med., Well? Here in Chicago a restaurant is legally liable if they undercooked the meat (in Chicago that means under 150 degrees) and did not post a sign warning of the dangers of eating undercooked food. This leads to the bigger question of regulation. Where does our responsibility end and the consumers begin? I know that 150 degrees is way too done for my taste. Even with proper handling, you have know way of knowing if your meat is totally safe. Was it handled properly all through the chain? Was the meat infected from the very beginning? Do we ban all roasted meats from being served less then MW?

I would gather to guess that the meat was probably not kept at the proper temperature. If after roasting, and then resting the meat, where was the meat kept? Luck may have contributed to other guests not becoming sick from roasted and cooled, then reheated and warmed meat. What do you my fellow culinarians think?

[judy]

Were not these two friends hospitalized with this sickness and the type of food poisoning traced by your health board.
This way the restaurant would be responsible to trace the cause.If it was tainted meat surely more people that had eaten there would have also been affected.

Did they have a foodborne illness, or did they just both get the flu? Everytime someone eats at a restaurant and then doesn't feel perfect, they automatically assume its a foodborne illness. Did anyone else who ate their that night get sick?

AHHHHH. According to the FDA most cases of the Fl are in fact food born illness. With these two people we really need to find out what else they ate. I would guess if it were just the steak there was cross-contamination. I recently had the privilage of looking in on a restaurant's kitchen and found that they took WAY too much precaution when it came to prep work. It went so far as to take the temp of pasta after cooking tomake sure it went to 38 within two minutes. Com'n thats a little too much. Well I hope that your friends are doing better and have enjoyed a night out since then.

I wonder it every employee, especially foreign ones or less educated ones wash their hands CONSTANTLY... especially after using the bathroom.... YUCH... but it happens all the time. In Chicago, they have sanitation classes in spanish.. I've sent two of my guys. It's well worth it.

Here, the mandatory sanitation classes are very limited. They even give you the answers and let you miss up to five questions.

WOW! Thanks for the great response. Ok there are some great comments, but here is an interesting point. Recently spoke with a lawyer about the whole issue and asked what is a restaurants responsibility in this situation. He made an interesting point in that if the restaurant does decide to compensate the people who got sick then they are admitting that it is their fault that the people got sick. So lets keep this going, what is a restaurants responsibility in this situation?

FYI I spoke with my friends and the prime rib was the only meal that they ate together all day. Also they did have a salad which my be the origin of the sickness.

Later,
2quiet

I believe, in Chicago, if the Health Department gets repeated calls about a specific restaurant they will close you down.
It's a restaurants responsibility to the public to serve good (safe) food. That's rather cut and dried. You, who keeps asking what responsibility should the restaurant take?.... are you a lawyer?
It is each and every employee of the restaurant, who's ultimate responsibility it is, the protect the public... that comes with education in food handling and proper personal hygene..

Carol,

No I am not a lawyer, I am a chef for over 15 years now. The question is do you feel you have a responsibility to someone when they come to you and say "I got sick after I ate in your restaurant". Do you give them their money back, do you tell them to shove off, what? Incidentally of my two friends who got sick, one of them is a lawyer and after the restaurant made no attempt to make an apology or give them some kind of compensation, my friend contacted the state health department and reported the restaurant. Now all of a sudden the restaurant is buddy buddy and has contacted them and tried to work something out.

Hmmmmmm...

I think the restaurant should at least investigate the incident, talk to everyone who was working when the incident took place. Find out if it could of been their fault. And at least acknowledge the problem with the people, and not ignore them. Its amazing how quickely people will change their attitude if you just acknowledge them.

The restaurant involved, with information from the customer, is the only entity with enough information to determine the origin of a problem like this. How many Prime Rib are sold a night.....at what temperatures. If a restaurant sells 40 prime rib at a variety of temperatures over a given night and only two people dining together get ill it is very unlikely that the prime rib had anything to do with it. Its unlikly 10 people became ill and only two complain!!!!! How long after the meal was consumed did the first sign of illness occur? This is very important as different types of illness are caused by different type of food for different reasons and have very different incubation periods. How long were they ill......same reasons.....You also need information on their common dining for 72 hours as some viruses can take that long to affect how you feel. Its a complicated puzzle and almost never black and white. It can be very easy to blame the last place you ate.....that may not be the cause at all.


However, I am very surprised to hear of the restaurants reaction........I have had very few customers in 14 years complain of feeling ill after dining with me. Its been so long I can't remember the last occurance. My policy in all cases is not to accept resposiblilty, but to compensate the customer, usualy with a free meal on a future visit. I encourage the customers to return as soon as possible so their most recent memory is a good one, and they feel positive about the restaurant. (We use the same general rule with any unsatisfied customer) If they won't return for a free meal.....there is a real good chance they won't return at all and your probably not going to "buy" their goodwill with refunds or anything else. A restaurant that gets few to no complaints of this nature can afford to buy dinner on the "out of the blue" occasion someone associates their illness with a dining experience. Better to buy dinner than to have upset people running around telling the world the ate at ___________ and it made them ill.