Four London branches of the Mexican restaurant chain Wahaca remain closed after a suspected outbreak of norovirus affected more than 350 customers and staff.
Environmental health officers and officials from Public Health England (PHE) were called in after a suspected outbreak of the winter vomiting bug struck nine branches last week. All were shut down; five have since reopened.
“The majority of our restaurants are open and we hope to reopen the four remaining sites, on a case-by-case basis, as soon as we feel we are ready to do so,” said co-founders Mark Selby and Thomasina Miers in a statement published on the chain’s website.
The branches that are still closed are all in London: Canary Wharf, Covent Garden, Oxford Circus and Soho. a spokesperson for the company said there would be an update on the situation on Monday.
Norovirus, which causes diarrhoea and vomiting, is one of the most common stomach bugs and, while it is more common in winter, can be caught at any time of the year. It usually clears up by itself in a few days.
The virus can rapidly spread in public places and can be caught through close contact with someone with the virus (if they breathe out particles containing the virus), touching contaminated surfaces or eating contaminated food that has been handled by an affected person who has not washed their hands.
Deborah Turbitt, London deputy director for health protection for PHE, advised people affected to drink lots of fluids to avoid dehydration, and to avoid going to their GP in case they spread it to others.
The statement by Miers, a former MasterChef winner, and Selby said: “We are incredibly sorry that people have been unwell. In the nine years since we first opened Wahaca we have never had such an unprecedented incident, and we are doing everything we can to get to the bottom of how this may have happened.”
A Day of the Dead event planned for Thursday evening was cancelled as a result of the outbreak, and ticket buyers were refunded.
Selby and Miers added: “We want to make sure that our time and efforts are being spent with our teams so that we can get the restaurants affected back up and running as soon as possible, and that any staff and customers affected can make a speedy recovery.”
