A restaurant chain owner has hit back at claims his Leeds eatery has a "resident rat" after a video showing a huge rat running around the dining area of the premises was posted by an ex-employee.
Ashley Docherty, who worked briefly at Pieminister in Duncan Street, Leeds city centre, posted a video showing a large rodent in the premises. The video has since gone viral, notching up 93 shares and several comments in just under a day.
But, Jon Simon, the Managing Director and co-founder of Pieminister - a family-owned business that has a branch in Leeds - told LeedsLive the video doesn't reflect his restaurant's standards and was a one-off incident that was filmed at night when the business was closed. Mr Simon said: "It's certainly not true and seems incredibly unfair. It's not based on fact at all.
Read more: 60-year-old gran livid after being "forced" to take "sky high" flight of stairs at Leeds Bradford
"It's based on a video of a pest taken when we were shut and that has been rectified. We have pest control in place. It has been there before this incident. It has been dealt with."
Mr Simon confirmed that once he was made aware of the video, the restaurant immediately called pest control who resolved the matter. He said: "As soon as the video was posted, we called Eco Lab (pest control) immediately who resolved the matter and deep cleaned the site twice on our request. The case was closed. Eco Lab visits our restaurant eight times a year as part of their contract with us."
Mr Simon says there has never been a rodent problem at his premises before. He said: "As you can see, this was a one-off incident and we have been advised that this was likely the result that we had major roadworks in front of the restaurant around that time. As you’ll see from the attached report, there was no rodent activity in any part of the building."
Documents supplied to Leeds Live showed Eco Lab attended Pieminister in Duncan Street, Leeds, and found the rodent in question and eliminated it. There was no further rodent activity found at the premises.
An additional check for insects and other pests in every other area of the restaurant, like the offices, internal rooms, kitchen, storage rooms, and stock room came out clean. Internal rodent monitoring equipment was inspected, serviced and cleaned.
Leeds Live understands that a complaint was made to Leeds City Council after the rodent was spotted. Leeds City Council received the allegation, but Pieminister produced documentation to confirm pest control procedures were in place and had recently been cleared as pest-free.
Leeds City Council also confirmed that the report in question - relating to the rat seen in the video - was the only one they have been made aware of, and that they investigated it.
Read next
