Updated 2:10 p.m. on Dec. 5 with comments from the Pennsylvania Department of Health.
A longtime State College restaurant owner says food was not the cause of illnesses that led to an investigation of his eatery by state and local health officials this week. The state and borough health departments say they’re still investigating the source.
Faccia Luna, 1229 S. Atherton St., has been temporarily closed since Monday after multiple people who visited and worked at the pizzeria and Italian restaurant over the weekend reported becoming ill.
The Pennsylvania Department of Health, Department of Agricultural, which regulates food safety in the commonwealth, and the State College Health Department, which inspects local restaurants, are working together “in an effort to respond to the recent illness outbreak,” a state health department spokesperson wrote.
At least 40 individuals reporting illness connected to the outbreak have been identified.
“The illness in question is associated with gastrointestinal illness and includes vomiting, diarrhea, and fever,” Mark O’Neill, press secretary for the state health department, wrote in an email. “The DOH epidemiology team is currently working to determine the potential source of the illness.”
Borough spokesperson Kayla Lafferty also confirmed that State College’s Health Department is investigating with the state agencies.
“It is suggested that anyone experiencing symptoms of foodborne illness should consult with their physician on whether they need to be treated,” Lafferty wrote in an email. “To report the symptoms of foodborne illness, people are asked to email the Borough at [email protected] and Betsy Negron, the PA Department of Health Epidemiologist for this region, at [email protected].”
A post in the Facebook group Foodies of State College about people becoming ill with gastrointestinal symptoms after eating at Faccia Luna over the weekend drew numerous replies from customers who said they or members of their parties had gotten sick. Many said they had salad from the restaurant before becoming ill.
But Faccia Luna owner Bill McFadden said the illnesses were not food poisoning, but rather norovirus that spread among staff and diners. Norovirus is a highly contagious virus with symptoms such as vomiting and diarrhea. It most often occurs in winter months and can be spread through food, beverages, surfaces or close contact with an infected person.
Many of McFadden’s employees became ill and none ate salad, he said. At the request of the health department, a staff member who was sick went to the hospital for testing and tested positive for norovirus, he added.
It was a busy Penn State football weekend, he noted, and the restaurant was crowded.
“Somebody brought it in,” McFadden said. “Whether it was that it was a football weekend, whether it was my employees, but it was not the food. The health department will tell them it’s not the food.
“I’m sure most people, they got sick and they ate food and they blamed it on the food,” McFadden said. “Well, it was not the food… [Norovirus] is very contagious and it’s unfortunate for everybody. And so I feel terrible, but it wasn’t the food and it wasn’t any of our procedures is all I can tell you.
He added that the health department did direct him to throw away lettuce anyway and said they did not have the ability to test it. McFadden said he believes bad lettuce would have caused problems at other establishments that bought it from the same vendor, if it had been the source of the illness.
Faccia Luna was closed Monday and Tuesday because, McFadden said, he did not have enough employees available. It remained closed on Wednesday, but he expected to reopen on Thursday.
“[The health department] gave us instructions on how to sanitize the place with bleach water, and they didn’t want us open today (Wednesday),” McFadden said. “They said you have to clean, you have to wipe everything down and it has to sit for an hour anyway … and, besides, I don’t even know if I have enough staff who’s able to work right now to begin with.”
Faccia Luna has been in business since 1991, and McFadden has been a local restaurateur dating back to the 1970s. He said this is his first time experiencing a situation like this.
“It’s upsetting,” he said. “I know I’ve got people saying all kinds of crazy stuff. I’ve been doing this for over 50 years, and this is the first time something like this has happened to me.”
