A Texas rat got its 15 seconds of fame this weekend after it got caught on camera leaping into a Whataburger’s deep fryer, according to a Facebook video of the incident.
Facebook user Brushawn Lewis posted the video, which Facebook concealed due to the nature of the content, on his page Saturday showing a rat scurrying around the counter near the deep fryer while Whataburger employees try and fail to catch the rodent.
“This girl really fixin’ to try and catch this rat,” Lewis says, moments before the rodent takes its fatal plunge.
“Oh, Lord!” he yells. “It went in the grease!”
Customers could be heard screaming in the background while another worker says, “I’ll try and get it out.”
Despite the graphic nature of the video, Lewis’s video went viral, gaining more than 17,000 reactions and more than 74,000 shares.
“This shit is crazy. I’m at whataburger in Bastrop Tx. It’s a damn rat just out in the open!” Lewis wrote in the caption of his Facebook video. “But it did get deep fried! Smdh.”
Officials with the fast food chain responded to the video, saying that the particular Whataburger location has been closed and sanitized.
“Thank you for bringing this to our attention,” the fast-food chain said in a statement.“At Whataburger, cleanliness and food safety are top priorities for us. In this instance, we closed the restaurant out of an abundance of caution and notified pest control.
“The entire restaurant has since been cleaned and sanitized. We addressed this situation as quickly as possible, reinforcing procedures with our Family Members. While we’ll continue to be very diligent, it’s important to know there was no history of this type incident at this unit and there is no ongoing issue,” the statement continued.
Dealing with rodent problems in the restaurant industry is not uncommon. In November 2018, a Hawaii-based burger joint closed briefly after a viral video showed two of its employees cooking a rat on the burger grill.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.