Beth Oteyza is one of more than a dozen people who say they got sick after eating at a Sterling Chipotle.
“There’s my little tape mark,” she said Tuesday, pointing to the spot where an IV was in her arm.
Oteyza and her daughter visited the fast-casual restaurant at 21031 Tripleseven Rd. last Friday.
Just 24 hours later, she was in the emergency room. Her daughter was at urgent care.
“We started to compare notes… and the one thing we both had was the same salad from Chipotle,” she said.
Several others are saying the same thing.
Chipotle closed voluntarily Monday to do a sanitization of the location after learning about the illness reports that day, Jim Marsden, executive director of food safety said.
The restaurant responded that the symptoms are consistent with norovirus. Marsden said the voluntarily closing is an established protocol in situations of illness.
“Norovirus does not come from our food supply, and it is safe to eat at Chipotle. We plan to reopen the restaurant today.” Marsden said Tuesday.
“I really never eat there, but I have questions about why this keeps happening to this restaurant,” Oteyza said.
This Chipotle on Tripleseven Road had its last health inspection in April. It came up clean, according to health officials in Loudoun County.
They haven’t had any violations since March 2016. Back then, health officials dinged the restaurant for having fruit flies.
In May 2015, health officials also said “employees or applicants didn’t know the reporting procedures about their own health and activities. If they were suspected of causing or were exposed to a disease outbreak like the norovirus or E.coli.”
During that same inspection, health officials found ground beef and beans that were too warm in the fridge, and the fridge was "constantly open during food prep and storage."
The Tripleseven Road location has had nine critical violations since October 2013.
You can track health inspections for Virginia restaurants online, just click here.
As for Oteyza, she’s never going back.
“They’re trying to run a business, and they’re trying to get back on track, but you can’t do that with the public health,” she said.
Chipotle has been trying to bounce back from E.coli and salmonella outbreaks that started in 2015 at some of its locations. Then in February 2016, all locations shut down for a day so employees could go through food-safety training.
