Apparently this place has been in trouble with the health department since 2004. Personally I think that YUM Brands, the parent company of both Taco Bell and KFC has some serious problems. There was already an E.Coli scare regarding Taco Bell. And now this. CEO David Novak should quit. Instead last year the board gave him a $3 million bonus on top of all the rest of the fortune he made.
David Novak, CEO Yum Brands. Total compensation for last year according to Forbes $37.42 million
The YUM Brands Directors include none other than David Dorman the CEO and Chairman of AT&T! Why is this guy in the food industry? Dorman got his start at the defunct Pointcast in 1997 and worked his way up to this: rats!
AT&T’s Dorman. Member of Compensation Committee at Yum Brands.
Also on the board is the Chairman and CEO of Target, Robert Ulrich. The complete list is here. The shareholders should be incensed at these people. What kind of operation are they running? And, yes, it is a franchise operation, but are there no standards or QC?
Ulrich made over $39 mil last year.
How dare these CEOs not come to each local francgise and sweep and mop the floors personally!
Why, one might start to think there are near to 20 or 30 layers of employee between a CEO and a part-time idiot making 6 bucks an hour to sling tacos. One might even believe that a CEO couldn’t possibly personally oversee that level of detail.
One might. If one were…you know…crazy. Now someone get David Novak a mop and a hairnet please.
They should make the CEO and the board members dine at that location for a month. Every meal. That would get thing cleaned up quick.
Ummm, I know it makes for a sensational headline but it wasn’t during broad daylight. It’s not like the restaurant was filled with customers and a pack of killer rats swarmed the place. It was at 2:30 a.m. when people walking by saw the rats through the window of the closed restaurant and the news crew was called.
It’s good to be KING. These rich at the top are all sitting around laughing at us blue collar workers. The middle class is almost gone. So goes the US.
I had a friend who managed restaurants back in the 80s. He said you never even try to get rid of roaches or rats, that’s simply impossible. You just try to manage them the best you can. I imagine the situation would be much worse in a city such as New York.
None of those guys would be caught dead in a KFC or Taco Bell joint unless it was to make a TV commercial. And I doubt they give a rat’s ass (even one of their own rats) about the people who eat in those places. The way corporations operate these days, they’re more about bleeding a company’s market cap (investors’ money) into their own personal wallets. But hey, if they can manage to tank profits enough, maybe they’ll be able to arrange multimillion dollar bonuses (using the investors’ money) to resign and go live in the Bahamas.
I have a friend who lives nearby and I used to eat there a few times a year.
Never again!
I though after the E. Coli scare Taco Bell would be the cleanest food chain in the US.
This franchisee should have his franchises pulled. This would send a message to all the other franchise owners. Keep it clean or lose your sizable investment.
I hope Taco Bell can come back from this. It is my favorite fast food.
#9, good point.
If your intent is to “manage” a pest problem, then you already lost. Yes it does cost a bit more but good practices make eradication possible and in my opinion, preferable. While some of the problems may be attributed to the neighbors lifestyle, I guarantee the restaurant is the main attraction.
While it is easy and fashionable to criticize CEOs, in this case the major responsibility rests with the franchise owner. The health officials should shut him down and fine him.
The reason these people received bonuses is simple : having meat shipped to all of the stores costs a LOT of money… and by attracting a source of meat to the store is saving them big time. Don’t be surprised…you thought that was actually ground BEEF?!
With an increase in third world immigrants, are sanitary conditions in our country increasingly being compromised to the level of a third world country?
Rats in a major city… shocking!
Gives new meaning to “tastes just like chicken”!!
“Good Lord! Look at them Rats!”
“I never seen so much mice in my life!”
“Oh snap!”
Inner city = lol
#17
Buy 20 wings and get a fried rat for free. 😉
Please keep in mind folks that while this incident doesn’t look favorable to YUM! Brands, the E-Coli wasn’t their fault. If I recall correctly the problem occurred with a food supplier, not within the company itself.
Just trying to keep things in perspective.
What’s a “Restarant”?
I know…let’s stop eating at “fast food” restaurants. They all suck, and who wants food cooked by aminimum wage worker, anyway? In most cases they are illiterate, haven’t read the ‘safe food handling guideline pamphlet’ and who knows if they even read the signs in the bathroom to wash their hands, muchless actually WASH THEM!
Go home, cook for yourself!
Those rats looked like they were just released.
Yes..despite my provocative attack on the board of directors..there is something suspect about this whole episode. Why were the rats there one day out-of-the-blue?
That said they still had pending violations.
When I worked in Montreal, we had a contract with an exterminator..a contract that we eventually cancelled. The day they came to pickup all their traps the place was loaded with mice…everywhere.
I later found out through the radio that corruption was very high with exterminators in our area.
I’m just sayin’. 😀
I would guess the cold weather in NY, and maybe some construction or demolition activity had something to do with this rodent event. This is NY after all, and prior to these particular rats popping up in this Taco Bell, there were probably, oh, a quarter of a million of then in the sewers and subways within a few blocks. This place has probably been a bio-hazard for decades, something displaced those rats and this Taco Bell was just the first place they found to call their new home. Frankly, given the things you see in fast food joints, if in fact all restaurants were Taco Bell, and there was no other choice, I would opt for one with LIVE rats.
Ballenger,
Dead rats don’t carry fleas and poop. FYI. They also don’t breed.
I can’t see your opting for a LIVE RAT…seems weird to me.
They wouldn’t be there in such numbers if there wasn’t food and access.
I worked in a restaurant that was on a pier over a warf. The warf was — literally — crawling with rats but I never saw one in the restaurant the nine or so months I worked there.
The doors to the trash and delivery were steel covered, heavy and shut very tight. The only normal door was the front door.
So, I can’t understand why this KFC couldn’t do the same.