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Pars Cove Runs Business As Usual

By Pritzker | Ruohonen

Pars Cove, a restaurant in the Lincoln Park area of Chicago, experienced a minor setback due to an outbreak of salmonellosis in hummus dishes served at last year’s Taste of Chicago.  The outbreak sickened 790 people, with 182 confirmed cases of salmonellosis and 30 hospitalizations.  Attorneys at our law firm are representing victims of this outbreak.  

Max Pars, owner of Pars Cove, had an interesting response to the outbreak. According to the Medill Reports of Northwestern University,

He didn’t lay off any of his six employees, he didn’t change prices, which average $13 per entrée, and he didn’t budge on his no-advertising policy. Well, Pars did make one change: he temporarily stopped serving hummus dishes. After a subsequent health inspection, the restaurant corrected six violations, which included a refrigerator not set at the proper temperature and evidence of rodents. As soon as the Health Department gave him the go-ahead, Pars resumed selling hummus dishes.

Business at the restaurant dropped by as much as 20% in the months following the outbreak, but then quickly rebounded. The Chicago Department of Public Health narrowed the source of contamination down to a sesame seed paste used in the hummus dish, but an exact cause may never be known.  Meanwhile, the restaurant remains open and producing hummus dishes as it has always done.

Full post as published by Food Poisoning Law Blog on February 01, 2008 (boomark / email).