BILLINGS- Those with Riverstone Health said Monday, they're following up on a complaint made against a Billings restaurant after video surfaced on social media showing insects on various plates of food.
However, those with the Outback Steak House in Billings said the incident was isolated.
The video was shared Sunday evening by Billings resident Rhonda Smith accompanied with the caption “Found worms in 5 of our 9 plates at Outback Steakhouse, ruined my twins’ birthday dinner.”
When reached by phone Monday morning, Smith said when the food arrived at her family’s table, they started to notice the insects on various plates at the table.
“One started to crawl out from under a steak,” she said.
In the video you can see the insects, which look much like tiny worms wiggling and moving on white plates.
Her video camera can be seen moving from plate to plate where the bugs are shown near fries, under another plate of food and near a hamburger.
Smith said she overheard a nearby table in the restaurant also report the same complaint.
By Sunday evening the video was shared hundreds of times on social media.
Smith said the restaurant was notified of the issue, servers took away the food and then the restaurant paid for the meal. But she says, she didn’t find out what happened past that.
A spokesperson for Riverstone Health, which oversees inspections for restaurants in Yellowstone County told MTN News Monday that there was a complaint filed to their agency regarding the incident at the restaurant.
“Yes, we did get a complaint and are following up. I don’t have any further info right now,” said Public Information Officer Barbara Schneeman.
She also said that the restaurant itself did reach out to Riverstone to also report the situation.
MTN News also made a call to Outback Steakhouse, where a supervisor who answered the phone said the health inspector was presently at the establishment and said “it looks good.”
However, she declined to comment further on the situation besides saying the “incident is isolated.”
Riverstone Health does routine health inspections for restaurants and publicly posts that information on its website.
The restaurant had a total of four violations in 2019. The violations stemmed from not adequately storing food for temperature control to not having a hand-washing sink supplied with hot water. Those issues were corrected, according to the reports.
The restaurant has had a total of 8 food safety violations since 2017.
MTN did leave a message for the owner of the Outback Steak House and is awaiting a call back for comment.
