A McDonald's on 45th Street in West Palm Beach was voluntarily shut down Friday morning after a former employee posted a video on Facebook showing rats running through the restaurant.
The store's owner said the video is a month old and that the restaurant had trouble with rats because of some nearby construction.
"Ever since we had construction on the adjacent property, which now is the 7-Eleven, we have had rodents around the restaurant in the parking lot and due to the fact that we've seen this we've had our pest control companies on this on a daily basis,” said owner Ricky Wade.
He speculated that the employee decided to post the video because she was fired.
Wade claimed he voluntarily closed the restaurant today because of the Facebook video
“But as of right now, no rats or anything? he was asked. “Oh no, no, no, no this is precautionary," he said.
Wade had his pest control company come back out and take a look.
The health department also came by because off all the social media buzz.
In a report, inspectors say they found around 180 rat droppings inside and right outside of the restaurant.
Soon after, the woman who posted the rat video stopped by.
She said that she didn't want to do an interview... but when asked if she'd posted an old video she showed the time stamp. "The video was not taken over a month ago. The video was taken February 1st at 1:10 a.m."
An attempt to follow up with the restaurant owner on what his former employee had to say and what the health department found was unsuccessful. Employees said no one was willing to speak.
The owner said Friday morning the restaurant would be back open Saturday.
Click here for the link to watch the video. Warning there is graphic language.
