Sick

Just to let everyone know the Olive Garden responded to me today and
indicated that they were mailing me a gift certificate and also to let
me know that had we went to the Dr. that they would reimburse any out
of pocket expense even if it was indicated that the culprit was not
food poisioning. I thought this was a very nice and acceptable
response- over and above what I had expected. I still don't know if I
will be eating there any time soon even though I know that it was
probably an isolated incident or an off chance that it was something
else. Worst case senario, if the certificate they send me is only good
at the Olive Garden I can pass it on to a friend to enjoy. Thanks for
all of your comments and well wishes.

Maybe it's just me, but greasy fried food, especially calamari,
sitting in a car for any amount of time in Vegas heat sounds like
russian roulette! I would think twice about bringing anything like
that home for dinner! Hope you're feeling better!

um...food poisoning can take up to two days so you have NO evidence.
you need to report your illness to the appropriate party and have the
food tested only then can it be determined that you have food
poisoning.

my boyfriend and I have recently ate at the Olive Garden and had the
appetizer with the stuffed mushrooms, calamari, some meatballs, and...
something else, and it was DELICIOUS, and we didn't get sick:)

First of all, you do NOT have the flu - 'flu' is respiratory, not
gastrointestinal. But that's just a pet peeve of mine - sorry!

Secondly, it IS possible for a gastrointestinal illness to strike 2
people within an hour and so suddenly. There is a bad one going
around right now, and they tend to be very virulent.

I am not saying that you did NOT have food poisoning - that most
certainly is possible! But it might help you to get over your
aversion to OG to realize that things like the Norwalk virus strike
hard and without warning, especially when people share living space.

Hope you're feeling better soon - a heating pad helps those stomach
cramps, I've found!

I hope you and your roomate get well soon. This is a most unpleasant
thing to go through, and the idea of going back would not sit well
with me either. I'm glad you let them know, hopefully it's an isolated
case, but maybe let the local health department know as well. Your
request is reasonable, I hope others wrote as well, not that I wish
any illness on anyone, it would just help them see there was an
issue.

The OP wrote the letter professionally and with all pertinent
information.

The letter is reasonable and credible.

Good job and I hope the food-handling or food-storage procedures are
revisited.

You should consider reporting it to your local health dept. This
website

https://rusick2.msu.edu/

will allow you to put in the info about where you ate and when, what,
etc and send the info to the health dept. It won't get the resturant
in trouble, per se, but it allows the health dept to monitor things.
The ppl who developed this webesite gave a guest lecture in my epid
class, in case you were wondering why I was plugging them ;-)

I hope you're feeling better soon. This letter is great, and it's so
nice to see someone go through something like this and still write
such a clear, professional letter. I think Olive Garden is owned by a
company that owns many other restaurants, so possibly if you get some
kind of gift card you can use it somewhere else? I do know what you
mean, though, about not wanting to go back to a place that made you
ill. Get well, and I hope you hear back from them! :)

Nice letter. Hope you and your roommate feel better soon.

I was just wondering if you refrigerated the leftovers until dinner
time. Even though the food was cooked, keeping it at the wrong
temperature could make you ill.

You didn't mention the location in your letter, and a telephone call
to the restaurant would have been a quicker way to notify them of a
possible dangerous situation.

I hope you and your roommate are feeling better now, and that you hear
back from the company.