WASHINGTON, Ill. (WMBD) — Monical’s Pizza at 6 Cherry Tree Shopping center in Washington is currently closed due to an outbreak of an illness Saturday.
According to the Tazewell County Health Department, they were temporarily closed by the Illinois Department of Public Health due to an outbreak of a currently unknown foodborne illness.
IDPH is currently working with the Tazewell County Health Department to identify the source.
155 people have currently reached out to the Tazewell County Health Department and reported symptoms of diarrhea and vomiting lasting 12 to 24 hours.
The health department is encouraging everyone to wash their hands and use hand sanitizer at this time.
Monical’s Pizza is anticipated to be reopened Tuesday.
Anyone who ate at Monical’s Pizza since Nov. 21, and is experiencing symptoms, is encouraged to complete an online form.
Monical’s has released the following statement:
Monical’s Pizza has served millions of meals to guests for 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 continual 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 from food. Here’s what we can say. . .
during this time, we have performed additional aggressive cleaning, discarded all
prepared foods, and reinforced training with our staff on proper food handling. Rest
assured that we are meeting the guidelines established by local and state health
departments.
The Tazewell County Health Department has approved us to reopen, and we will do so
tomorrow, November 29th. We are fortunate to be partnered with the health department
during this process. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused
our guests and their families and look forward to serving them again soon.
The Tazewell County Health Department also stated that Lab results related to this incident are expected Wednesday.
