(KMOV.com) -- A customer in a St. Louis County restaurant suffered a shock after discovering a dead mouse in her salad.
It happened at the popular Katie’s Pizzeria in Clayton, near the Richmond Heights border. However an investigation revealed the mouse didn’t come from the restaurant but a food supplier.
The owner of Katie’s said he immediately contacted his supplier, Restaurant Depot, following the incident in February. Restaurant Depot assumed responsiblity.
Restaurant Depot doesn’t package the spring mix salad. The company receives its produce, already packaged, from a company in California.
Restaurant Depot’s vice president, Gene Casazza, said he didn’t want to speculate on how it could have happened without all the facts, but he did say the mouse could have ended up in the mix early on.
“That there’s the minute possibility that it happened during the picking stage on the field because, again, we’re talking about lettuce growing,” he said. “It happened at a point beyond our building, let’s put it that way.”
Casazza added that he has notified his vendor about the incident. Restaurant Depot serves more than 250,000 restaurants nationwide.
The owner of Katie’s says he requires employeese to do a thorough check of produce and other food they serve.
