Restaurants

Mice Fall From Ceiling Of Texas Chipotle

Chipotle mice video Wikimedia/Mikebay1968
Elizabeth Licata|

As if Chipotle weren't having a difficult enough time convincing customers that it is safe to return for their burritos with extra guacamole after a series of unfortunate food-borne illness outbreaks in recent years, this week customers in Texas actually caught video of several mice running around a Dallas Chipotle restaurant.

 

Customers say the mice started literally falling from the ceiling of the Chipotle right in the middle of the lunch rush on Tuesday, July 18. Some customers even managed to film the mice running around the restaurant.

"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," customer Daniela Ornelas told 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."

 

The rats were actually mice, but it still was not very appetizing.

 

Chipotle has been having a very bad run of things lately. In 2015 an E. coli outbreak sickened 60 people in 11 states and landed 22 in the hospital. Then there was a salmonella outbreak in Minnesota and Wisconsin and multiple norovirus outbreaks. The chain's stock price plummeted, and it faced several lawsuits.

After all those hits to Chipotle's reputation, the chain has been working to convince people that it's safe to eat there again. Video of mice falling from the ceiling is not going to help that at all.

 

A Chipotle spokesperson said the mice fell into the restaurant through a structural gap in the building. The spokesperson said the hole has been repaired so it can't happen again, and the chain reached out to the customers to try to "make things right."

The spokesperson stressed that it was "an extremely isolated and rare incident."

 

It has been a tough couple years; here are 12 ways Chipotle is trying to win back our trust.

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