Is this another example of an unthinking fast food worker caught on camera doing something stupid, or is it all a misunderstanding that looks much worse than it is?

In the above video, an employee of small Texas fast food chain Bush’s Chicken opens the kitchen’s ice maker and finds a female employee inside the machine.

But the company claims that it’s not as bad as it looks. The owner of the restaurant tells NewsWest 9 that the video is several months old and that these employees were actually in the process of cleaning out the ice machine at the time.

“What they’re doing is cleaning the ice machines. We do this twice a year,” says the owner, who points out that none of his eateries have ever been shut down for health code violations. “The only way to do it, and even by the manufacturers recommendation, is to get inside to clean the bottom of it and remove stale ice and anything that may have gotten past the filters.”

The owner says that everything is sanitized and disinfected before the machine is put back into use.

He claims the video is surfacing now due because a former employee is working out a grudge against the company.

“They were terminated and in retaliation they put the video up,” he says. “If they felt there was something wrong with it, they should have done it four months ago. They threatened me about wanting their job back and we don’t do that.”

The owner says that people are invited to come and check out his kitchens and judge for themselves if there are any problems.

“Day or night I will be more than happy to walk them through any location that I have at any time and show them anything that they want to see,” he tells NewsNet 9.

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