Rodent droppings baked into a pizza prompted Indiana health inspectors to close a Little Caesars restaurant, WXIN reported.
The Marion County Public Health Department shut down the restaurant near downtown Indianapolis on Tuesday, The Indianapolis Star reported. It has since reopened.
Johnathan McNeil said he and his girlfriend picked up a pepperoni Hot-N-Ready pizza Tuesday and discovered the mouse droppings after leaving the restaurant, health department supervisor Derek Trackwell told the Star.
“Fortunately, they did not consume any of it,” Trackwell said.
“(My girlfriend) looked at the pizza and realized there was like doo-doo looking stuff on the pizza,” McNeil told WXIN.
When the couple returned to the restaurant, McNeil said the workers looked surprised.
“All of them were looking at my pizza dumbfounded as if they didn’t know what’s going on,” McNeil told WXIN. “I said, ‘That’s mouse doo-doo on the bottom of my pizza.’”
The restaurant’s business license was immediately suspended after health department officials conducted an emergency inspection.
"There was a good amount (of droppings),” Trackwell told the Star. “It was very obvious that there were numerous mouse droppings in the pizza," he said. "It's not very often that we run into that amount of evidence of mouse droppings in a food product."
According to the health department report, the inspector discovered mouse droppings "along the walls throughout the facility," but nothing in the dough or any other food, or in cabinets.
After a follow-up inspection Wednesday, the problems had been corrected, WXIN reported.
McNeil said he hopes other diners will check their food more carefully after buying it.
“I just want people to check their food and be very cautious about what they’re eating,” McNeil told WXIN.
A woman who identified herself as the manager at the restaurant declined comment, the Star reported. Calls to Little Caesars' corporate office were not returned Thursday.
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