Well, well, well. It seems the rat-infested KFC might not have been such a fluke after all. Yum! Brands, the owner of KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, etc., has preemptively shut down all restaurants owned by the rat-infested franchisee following a day of further failed inspections at other New York City locations. From WABC:

After a day of reinspections yesterday, the company that owns KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut decided to close all its ADF Companies franchises that have not yet been inspected by the Health Department.

“These few franchise units, operated by ADF in New York, obviously do not meet our strict restaurant standards based on health inspection reports,” said Emil Brolick, President U.S. Brands, Yum! Brands, Inc.

“They will remain closed until we are absolutely certain they will operate at our high standards. We apologize to our customers and are taking every action, with the assistance of external sanitation experts, to get to the bottom of this. We are redoubling our efforts to inspect every restaurant and are reinforcing all our restaurant cleaning and sanitation procedures,” Brolick said.

Yum! didn’t say how many restaurants were preemptively closed, but the franchisee operates 20 locations in New York City alone, and “runs nearly 400 franchise restaurants across the U.S. They are the second-largest Pizza Hut-franchise operator in the country.” That’s comforting.—MEGHANN MARCO

Inspectors close more city restaurants [WABC]
(Photo: Adam Lawrence)

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