A sign hangs on the front of an Olive Garden restaurant on June 22, 2023 in Chicago, Illinois.
A Michigan man is suing Olive Garden, alleging that he found a rat’s foot in a bite of minestrone soup.
According to the complaint, filed Friday in Macomb County against the restaurant and an LLC in Michigan called Olive Garden Holdings, Thomas Howie went out to dinner with friends in March at a restaurant in Warren, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit.
Howie, who lives in nearby Oakland County, ordered minestrone soup, according to the lawsuit, then felt a stabbing pain from a sharp object that hooked in his cheek as he tried to swallow a spoonful.
When he spat the food into a napkin, the complaint says, he saw a hairy, clawed rodent foot, which prompted him to vomit.
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The suit alleges that an Olive Garden employee denied that a rat’s foot could have been in the soup and commented, “That’s funny. We don’t even put meat in minestrone.”
An Olive Garden spokesperson told NBC News the company has “no reason to believe there is any validity to this claim.”
Read the full story on NBCNews.com here.
