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Chicken & Rice Guys — a popular group of restaurants and food trucks with brick-and-mortar locations in downtown Boston, Allston, and Medford — temporarily shut down earlier this month after an outbreak of E. coli cases was traced back to the chain’s Allston location. 10 people were reportedly hospitalized and several more became ill but did not seek hospitalization, according to the Boston Business Journal.
Over the weekend, the company reopened its brick-and-mortar locations, reports the BBJ. In an April 21 Facebook post, the Chicken & Rice Guys team explained that “the Boston Public Health Commission has given [the restaurants] the ‘all clear’ to resume operations pending re-inspection Saturday [April 22],” and on April 22, Chicken & Rice Guys shared a photo of City of Boston Inspectional Services commissioner William Christopher Jr. “enjoying the first plate of Chicky Rice.” The second Facebook post also notes that all restaurant locations are back on their usual schedules, but the trucks and Fooda pop-up at the Prudential remain closed for now. These are all expected to resume “shortly” after “the last permitting hurdles” are cleared.
In the April 21 post, the Chicken & Rice Guys team notes that the staff has spent the last 10 days attending food safety meetings and discussing what can be done to “further tighten up [their] food safety procedures.” Additionally, they say that they’ve hired an external food safety consultant, disposed of all the pre-shutdown prepared food from each location, professionally cleaned all of the locations, implemented new safety training and policies, and created an external auditing process that will involve surprise inspections by independent safety experts.
Chicken & Rice Guys restaurants are located at 85 Bedford St. and 280 Washington St. in Downtown Boston, 81 Harvard St. in Allston, and 64 Salem St. in Medford. All are open daily for lunch and dinner, except for Bedford Street, which is only open on weekdays. The restaurants and trucks serve a small menu of customizable rice plates and salad plates that come with chicken, gyro, or tofu and a variety of sauces. There’s also baklava.
• Chicken & Rice Guys Reopens After E. Coli Outbreak [BBJ]
• Chicken & Rice Guys Temporarily Closed for E. Coli Outbreak [EBOS]
• Chicken & Rice Guys [FB]
