McDonald’s at 619 Harrisburg Pike in Columbus, Ohio, was temporarily closed by the city health department (Picture: Google)
A McDonald’s restaurant was shut down after a couple reported finding a crack pipe in a drive-thru breakfast order.
The customer posted on Reddit that he brought the bag back to a manager at the McDonald’s in southwest Columbus, Ohio, so that an item like it would not ‘end up in a Happy Meal’.
He added that he was worried about children’s safety as a parent, and was glad he only purchased breakfast for himself on Tuesday morning at the location at 619 Harrisburg Pike.
The manager offered a refund, the Reddit user ltibbs wrote, which he said he refused. The customer reported the incident to Franklin County Public Health.
The McDonald’s location was given several days to correct multiple health code violations (Picture: Getty Images)
Franchise owner Alex Mendoza told The Columbus Dispatch at the time that his company, which operates at least 16 McDonald’s in the area, had ‘begun a thorough review of the claim’.
‘As a local business owner, the safety of my customers and crew is my first priority, and we take this very seriously,’ said Mendoza. ‘We have no indication that the item came from our restaurant but are continuing to investigate and have contacted local law enforcement to report the matter.’
The crack pipe report wound up opening a can of worms at the restaurant.
Health inspectors who investigated the location on Wednesday discovered multiple code violations related to construction at the service counter, beverage station and seating area. There was no protective barrier separating the construction zones from the food preparation sections.
“Beverage service equipment such as soda dispenser, frappuccino machine, frozen beverage dispenser, coffee machine had dust, debris, screws, unassembled computer equipment, wooden trim pieces on the top surfaces,’ states a report from Columbus Public Health.
Food was ‘not protected from environmental sources of contamination during preparation’.
The health agency gave the restaurant until January 4 to fix the health code violations.
Mendoza told the newspaper that the closure was for ‘a dust issue’ and not linked to the reported crack pipe.
McDonald’s corporate told the newspaper that the restaurant was back up and running on Thursday, which the health department confirmed.
The Reddit user was not the first customer to find an unwanted item in his McDonald’s order.
In January 2022, a Cheshire woman said she found a huge spider after eating three-quarters of her chicken and bacon wrap from McDonald’s. And in October of that year, a mother claimed she found maggots in a McDonald’s ketchup dispenser after ordering chicken nuggets for her kids at the chain’s Letchworth branch in Hertfordshire.
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A couple reported finding a crack pipe in a drive-thru breakfast order at a McDonald’s in Columbus, Ohio.