Dorian Greek House has been determined to be the origin of a stomach bug outbreak among hospital staff late last week.
Image Credit: Dorian Greek House
December 19, 2013 - 3:06 PM
KAMLOOPS - Just over 48 hours after closing to sanitize the entire restaurant following an outbreak of norovirus the Dorian Greek House restaurant reopened at 4 p.m. Wednesday.
The restaurant was inspected after reports 40 hospital staff came down with stomach illness late last week. When more reports continued Monday the restaurant was issued a closure order and the proprietors had to clean everything, throw out prepared food and educate staff on proper hygienic expectations before they could reopen.
Owner Diane Dokolas says clean up included throwing out any open tea boxes or Christmas ornaments that people could have touched as well as pens and colouring books. The reservation book has also been put in quarantine.
“Every wall space, anywhere anybody could have touched, has been cleaned,” Dokolas says.
They were allowed to reopen as of 4 p.m. yesterday and while she doesn't know the exact impact on the restaurant just yet there have been 'quite a number of cancellations' when it comes to staff Christmas parties.
She can't even begin to guess at how much bleach they went through but says her hands are quite sore. She also says the health inspector said they are likely the cleanest place in Kamloops right now, which is typical of any restaurant following a closure.
“We're very clean and taking three times as many cautions,” she notes. “Our measures have at least doubled.”
She says this is normally a very busy time of the year for the restaurant and while she doesn't know exactly what impact this closure has had on business, now or in the future, diners do seem a little nervous, which has led to some of the cancellations.
“We are still working on things like sending out an official apology to everybody,” she says. “We want to see people back and thank those that given us support through all this. And Merry Christmas.”
To contact a reporter for this story, email jstahn@infotelnews.ca, call (250)819-3723 or tweet @JennStahn.
News from © iNFOnews, 2013