Man nearly swallows razor after biting into Qdoba burrito, Wisconsin officials say

A Qdoba restaurant in Milwaukee has been ordered to temporarily shut down after a customer said he nearly swallowed a razor blade when biting into his burrito, Wisconsin officials told news outlets.

The Milwaukee Common Council made the decision to temporarily revoke the restaurant’s license during a June 11 meeting, according to the recorded minutes from the session. The 10-day suspension was agreed upon by council members based on a “preponderance of the evidence” provided by a police report on the matter.

The incident happened months ago, when customer Scott Siewart bought the burrito on Halloween, he told WITI.

“I bit into something hard and I’m thinking what is this?” he said, the station reported. The sharp, metallic object he pulled from his mouth was a razor blade.

Police investigated the incident and determined the blade matched a cutting tool used by Qdoba employees, and that it had broken off at some point and ended up in Siewart’s burrito, the station reported.

“If I would have swallowed that razor blade, so much damage would have happened to my body on the inside,” he told the station, adding that he’ll “never go back to another Qdoba again, I promise you that.”

Ronald Stokes, the owner of the Qdoba location in question, told the Common Council that after hearing what happened to the customer, he acted quickly to make sure it didn’t happen again by replacing the cutting tools with scissors, WISN reported. The tools were used to open bags of ingredients.

Stokes is also president of the Roaring Fork Restaurant Group, the station reported.

The group owns 61 Qdoba locations and seven Dave’s Hot Chicken restaurants in Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa, according to the group’s LinkedIn profile.

“It was a serious incident and somebody could have been harmed, but to shut down this business for 10 days really provides an irreparable damage to our reputation,” Stokes told the council, according to WISN.

A sign posted at the restaurant says it will reopen on June 21, the station reported.

This story was originally published June 16, 2024 at 4:14 PM with the headline "Man nearly swallows razor after biting into Qdoba burrito, Wisconsin officials say."