The New York City Health Department is urging patrons of a West Village restaurant to receive a vaccination after learning of a food handler there diagnosed with hepatitis A.

Any patron who had dessert at Alta restaurant between March 23 and April 2 is considered at risk, the Health Department said. It's recommended they get a hepatitis A vaccination as a precautionary measure. 

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NBCNewYork: NYC restaurant patrons possibly exposed to hepatitis-A: officials

As many as 3,000 people may have visited the restaurant during the week in late March, and about 15 percent are estimated to have eaten dessert, the Health Department said. 

Hepatitis A is a liver disease spread by putting something in the mouth that has been contaminated with traces of fecal matter from an infected person. Symptoms include jaundice, fatigue, abdominal pain, nausea and diarrhea.

"We are working closely with the Health Department to ensure the safety of our customers," said Christopher Chesnutt, owner of Alta restaurant. "This is an isolated incident and the infected employee is no longer on premises." 

The Health Department said it is working with the restaurant to obtain as many names as possible of people who may have been exposed and to contact each of them. Patrons can also call 311 for more information. 

People who have been exposed should be vaccinated within 14 days for the shot to be most effective. Those who were exposed but have already received two doses of hepatitis A vaccine sometime in their lives do not need another shot; all others should be vaccinated. 

Once its symptoms appear, hepatitis A cannot be treated with special medicines or antibiotics. 

Alta, a Spanish and Mediterranean tapas bar located at 64 W. 10th St., is generally reviewed well by critics and customers.

The Health Department said it was notified of the case on April 4, began the investigation, and inspected the restaurant Thursday. An average of 65 cases of hepatitis A occur in New York City each year, with one to two cases occurring in food handlers.

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Ten people were seriously injured, some of them critically, when a car plowed into a crowded Las Vegas restaurant during the lunch rush Monday, authorities said.

The car, which was traveling eastbound on Sahara Avenue a few blocks west of the Strip, swerved into the median, spun, hit two other cars and then barreled into the restaurant, witnesses told NBC station KSNV of Las Vegas. 

It was unclear what caused the vehicle to careen out of control, but the two people in the car jumped out and tried to run away. Other restaurant patrons tackled them and held them until police arrived.

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The restaurant, The Egg & I, was crowded with lunch-goers when the car came crashing through about 12:30 p.m. (3:30 p.m. ET). Ten people were taken to University Medical Center and Sunrise Hospital with serious injuries, fire officials said. 

Four people, one of them a boy about 12 or 13 years old, were trapped under the black Lexus sedan, said Suziliene McDonald, vice president of Hands of Comfort, a counseling and trauma foundation, who was eating lunch at the diner.

A woman "was on her stomach," she told KSNV. "The only reason that car did not fall down on her was there was a chair that was kind of jacked up holding it and a portion of it, but it was on her, too. 

"To the left of her was her son," she said, telling the station: "His uncle was under the car and trying to hold it up over his nephew."

The driver, who wasn't immediately identified, could be charged with as many as 10 felony counts of reckless driving, police said. The car's passenger wasn't arrested.

"As serious as it was, we are amazed there were no fatalities," Tim Szymanski, a spokesman for the Las Vegas Fire Department, told The Journal-Review newspaper.

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More than 70 restaurants in Kansas City, Mo., have pledged to donate part of the Saturday receipts to support employees of the restaurant that was destroyed in a massive gas explosion this week.

The explosion Tuesday killed one person, who hasn't been identified, and injured 15 others. One person remained in critical condition Friday, NBC station KSHB of Kansas City reported.

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The support effort for the staff of JJ's Restaurant was organized by the Greater Kansas City Restaurant Association, which posted details on its Facebook page. By late Friday, the list of restaurants promising to donate 10 percent of their sales Saturday had grown to 74, KSHB reported.

JJ's, a Kansas City institution since 1985, was widely regarded as one of the premier dining locations in the Midwest, earning a 93 rating from Zagat's. The restaurant's wine cellar had been listed by The Wine Spectator as among the finest in the world.

You can watch the blast as it happened in this surveillance video obtained by KSHB:

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ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE - The elderly owner of an Ohio restaurant where President Barack Obama ate breakfast on Friday died of natural causes just hours after meeting him.

Josephine "Ann" Harris, 70, owner of Ann's Place, where Obama was served eggs, bacon, toast and grits, died at a hospital in Akron, Ohio. The president called her daughter from Air Force One to express his condolences.

A hospital spokesman said Harris had complained of fatigue and a tingling feeling. White House press secretary Jay Carney said Harris apparently had not been well and was believed to have had a heart attack.

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The Summit County medical examiner's office said Harris died of natural causes. Hospital spokesman Jim Gorsky said she died five hours after Obama's visit. "The president expressed his sorrow," Carney said aboard Air Force One at the end of a two-day campaign swing through the election battleground states of Ohio and Pennsylvania.

"Very sad event. He was very honored to meet her this morning and passed on his feelings that the whole family is in his thoughts and prayers," he said.

Harris's encounter with Obama took place outside her diner, where the president ordered two eggs, over medium, with bacon and wheat toast and accepted a waitress' offer of grits.

Harris, a great-grandmother, hugged Obama and posed with him for photographs, local media said.

"I'm sure this was her highlight," Harris' sister, Frankie Adkins of Tulsa, Oklahoma, told the Akron Beacon Journal newspaper.

Obama was finishing up a campaign bus tour during which he visited several restaurants to dine and talk with the locals.

 

SAN FRANCISCO -- Heartbroken customers lined up for meal at a closing San Francisco institution — a 100-year-old Chinese restaurant once known for having "the world's rudest waiter." Diners of decades past say he would verbally abuse patrons, slam down dishes, and chastise complainers. 

Sam Wo, a Chinatown hole-in-the-wall that typified the kind of ethnic eateries for which the city's culinary scene was lauded before it became a trendy haven for foodies, planned to serve its last customers late Friday and into early Saturday.

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David Ho, a descendent of one of the restaurant's original owners, decided to shut down after officials demanded extensive health and safety upgrades.

 

 

 

On Friday, saddened patrons lined down the block to get a seat at one of the eight lunch tables and to mourn the loss of another San Francisco institution over bowls of won ton soup.

"I know change is good, but sometimes you want to hold onto the happy memories," said customer Darlene Lee, 71, who had been coming to the restaurant for 60 years and said its inexpensive fare was comfort food that reminded her of going home.

For those who did not grow up dining at Sam Wo, it became a cultural mainstay in the 1970s through reports by the late San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen and the "Tales of the City" novels of Armistead Maupin.

Both men immortalized the restaurant by writing about the antics of Edsel Ford Fung, the waiter who was known for verbally abusing patrons and slamming dishes on tables.

"The Soup Nazi is the Dalai Lama compared to Edsel Ford Fung," said longtime patron Sam Begler, as he tucked into pork rolls and chow mein. "He is the Don Rickles of restaurants."

Fung died in 1984 at age 57, but for a long time a sign listing the restaurant's house rules maintained his gruff demeanor. Among its warnings: "No Booze ... No Jive, No Coffee, Milk, Soft Drinks, Fortune Cookies." 

Begler, a caterer who had been dining at Sam Wo since 1976, recalled how Fung would refuse to serve people he didn't like the looks of and chastise customers who dared to complain when they were brought the wrong dishes. It was never quite clear whether his crustiness was genuine or an act, but it was always an experience, especially for locals who wandered in to take advantage of the restaurant's 3 a.m. closing time.

Another devoted customer who showed up to savor the last-day atmosphere, Michael Lyons, said it seemed odd for city inspectors to crack down on Sam Wo's managers now for failing to institute modern food safety techniques, when the restaurant's old-fashioned methods, such as chopping and preparing meat dishes on a wood table near the front door, was part of its charm.

"It's always been a litmus test in a new relationship," Lyons said about people he took to the restaurant. "If they can appreciate the humble character of a place like this, they passed the test." 

A New Hampshire restaurant owner says he is so fed up with the flurry of GOP presidential candidates at his Portsmouth eatery that he put up his own 2012 slogan: "No Politicians, No Exceptions."

For months, politicians, their staff and news media have stormed New Hampshire restaurants during the campaign for the White House.

Seeing no sign of easing until the Jan. 10 presidential primary, Jeremy Colby, owner of Colby's Breakfast & Lunch, said he had to do something to end the circus inside his small business located near the Massachusetts border.

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“There is no forewarning and all of a sudden they come in and we are overrun by cameras and blah, blah and blah,” Colby told msnbc.com. “We’re trying to run a business here and this whole meet-and-greet and vote for me deal is very distractive and disruptive, not only to our staff but to our customers.

"It’s hard and I find it very rude," he said.

Visits from Texas Governor Rick Perry and former presidential candidate Michele Bachmann sealed the deal to slap the sign on the door, he said.

“We just had had enough.”

(This story was first reported by CBSBoston.)

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