CS Fuego Restuarant Reopens

Fuego owner Paul Moler visits with reporters at the Brazos County Health Department.
Fuego owner Paul Moler visits with reporters at the Brazos County Health Department.

College Station’s Fuego restaurant reopened Saturday, following steps to eliminate salmonella.

Owner Paul Moler and officials of the Brazos County Health Department provided an update to reporters prior to a re-inspection that followed a 24 hour voluntary shutdown.

 

The exact source of the contamination remains under investigation.

The health department’s environmental compliance officer, Don Plitt, says Fuego agreed to a plan of action.

It includes replacing shelled eggs with pasteurized eggs that come in cartons, replacing all cutting boards, tossing out prepared food along with open and ill-fitting food containers, relocate where raw and cooked chicken is prepared to keep that separate from other food products, conducting two rounds of deep cleaning…first by employees then by a third party…establishing a cleaning log for every shift, close the lobby during the slowest periods, and food handlers meeting with health department staff next week.

 

Plitt says they were told by state officials that six people were hospitalized. No one died. That’s out of 16 Fuego customers who came in contact with the food borne bacteria.

In all, the state notified Brazos County of 30 cases. The source of the remaining 14 is not known.

There was a further explanation of the timeline that led to the restaurant closing. 21 of the 30 victims came in contact last September. But the county didn’t know about the problem until the state notified them in late January.

The county’s investigation, including interviews with victims, led to taking 36 test samples at the restaurant on May 13. The results were known ten days later, showing four of the samples tested positive for one of 25 hundred strains of salmonella.

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