PHILADELPHIA _ A Checkers restaurant in Philadelphia was shut down and several employees were fired after a worker posted a video describing how he wiped the floor and blew his nose using hamburger buns, spit and sneezed on food, and claimed workers were having sex with customers in the kitchen.
The drive-thru, on the 7100 block of Stenton Avenue in West Oak Lane, remained closed Tuesday morning. A manager said he planned to reopen the restaurant on Thursday.
The Checkers corporation went into immediate crisis mode after learning the video had gone viral over the weekend.
"The employees involved will be terminated. The restaurant will be fully sanitized and re-inspected before it opens and all of the team members will be fully retrained," said a statement released by Checkers media relations.
The restaurant was last inspected by the Philadelphia Department of Health on Sept. 26 when an employee was cited for not using soap and warm water to wash his hands, another was noted for not wearing hair restraints, and food was found being held at hazardous temperatures.
The health department could not immediately be reached for comment.
Richard Benson, the employee who created the expletive-laden 44-minute video, told NBC Philadelphia he was sorry for what he had done.
"Basically it was a publicity stunt that went wrong," said Benson, a self-described comedian and musician who raps under the name King Phantom. "Now a lot of people don't got jobs because of me and I feel bad. Because it all was a joke. It just went wrong."
During a May 2015 review, a health department sanitarian said the restaurant did not have adequate refrigeration and there was no food safety-certified person on the premises.
