Monical’s Pizza, located downstate in Illinois near East Peoria, should be back open today after being shut down by a large outbreak of unknown origin.
More than 150 restaurant customers became ill, according to the Tazewell County Health Department’s public surveys. The department is working with the Illinois Department of Public Health to determine the source of the mysterious outbreak.
Four days ago, the local health department made this announcement on its Facebook page:
“TCHD is investigating a foodborne outbreak. If you ate at Monical’s in Washington IL and have experienced vomiting and/or diarrhea since Monday, November 21st, please complete the online form.”
Monical’s Pizza is located at 6 Cherry Tree Shopping Center in Washington, IL, which is on U.S. Route 24 and Illinois Route 8 northeast of East Peoria.
The pizza restaurant issued the following statement:
“Monical’s Pizza has served millions of meals to guests over 60 years. The foundation of our business is high-quality food served safely.
“When we learned last week of people feeling ill after visiting our Washington Monical’s restaurant, we contacted the Tazewell County Health Department for guidance. Since then, we have been in constant communication with health officials. We followed their recommendation to close the store while they investigated.
“The health department has not determined the source of the illness as of this afternoon so we cannot report whether the source was from humans spreading germs or the food. Here’s what we can say, during this time we performed additional aggressive cleaning, discarded all prepared foods, and reinforced training with our stiffen proper food handling. Rest assured that we are meeting the guidelines established by local and state health departments.
The Tazewell County Health Department approved Monical’s re-opening this week. Neither the local health department nor IDPH has shared any other information with the public. Local people are reporting the symptoms of diarrhea and vomiting are lasting from 12 to 24 hours.
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