Customer discovers frog in salad at BJ's restaurant in West Covina
WEST COVINA, Calif. (KABC) -- A San Dimas woman wants answers after finding a frog in her house salad at BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse in West Covina.
"I'm super grossed out. I'm beyond grossed out," said Shawna Cepeda. She says it happened on June 13. She had already taken about four bites from her salad when she made the discovery.
"I passed it to my husband. I was like, 'Is that a piece of lettuce,' and he looked at it and was like, 'I don't think so.' And then we passed it to my daughter, and she said it was a frog," said Cepeda.
"The frog was definitely slimy. It had half of its, like, guts taken out already," she said, adding that it was between one and two inches long.
Cepeda said she alerted her server, who brought the manager over. She said he offered to pay for all of their meals, but they declined, saying they wanted to leave the restaurant. She says BJ's has sent her a $50 gift card, but she just wants to know what went wrong. She says a manager told her they get all of their produce from a produce vendor.
"BJ's must have some type of quality control when they receive their products. They must go through them, wash them, so to me that kind of seems like, did nobody even wash it? Did they just take it out of the bag and plate it?" she said.
The Los Angeles County Department of Health says an investigation was conducted on Tuesday. According to a written statement, their staff "did not observe any contamination of the lettuce products. However, an employee of the restaurant confirmed that a frog was in the customer's salad. According to a BJ restaurant representative, the frog was disposed by an employee."
A spokesperson for the restaurant also said in a written statement, "Guest satisfaction and quality control are our highest priorities. We take situations like this very seriously and have launched an internal investigation including discussions with our suppliers and distributors to ensure that nothing like this happens in the future."
