In the interest of fighting ignorance, here’s a quick quiz for SDMB wanna-be restaurant owners and food service workers:
There’s a dead rat on the floor. Do you:
a) Remove it and sanitize the area
b) Point and scream “ICKY RAT!”
c) Nudge it out of the way with your toe
d) Paint the rat to match the floor
If you answered “d”-there may be a job waiting for you in Oz. 
How about:
e) ask it if it would like an appetizer before it orders a main course
[Homer] Mmmm, floor rat! [/Homer]
Obviously, they need to start serving Golden Puffs cereal, and then they won’t have any rat problems.
No worries…
It’s dead. Dead critters show little or no appetite.
Since it’s in a restaurant, I might try performing a Heimlich (sp?) maneuver, though I’m not quite sure how one goes about doing that to a rodent. I draw the line at an attempt to revive it with mouth-to-mouth.
The rat…was it painted a tasteful color?
That’s the best pun I’ve heard all day.
No no, it’s only mostly dead. The paint they used was Miracle Max Brand[sup]tm[/sup].
could have been just pinin’ for the fjords.
Oh, I so wanted to read this as “Jo’s Brassiere!”
Yeah, that was in yesterdays local paper. Worst part is that the person who runs the joint seems to have numerous convictions for similar things. Bleah. :mad:
Yeah but they serve a great rat sorbet…
Okay, I just read the linked story - WTF? Hereabouts, by the time you got to the part where you had a whole rat city in your kitchen and some unspecified fungus growth and people being served whole fish with guts and all, the health department would have shut you down six months ago! Do they not do regular surprise inspections?
Is that rat tart?
I’ll have a slice without so much rat in it.
Try the ratattouie.
Ow! Stop hitting me!
And I’ll have a side of vermincelli with marinara sauce.
As for inspections, if there is anything like here, they have a hard enough time doing one scheduled inspection a year. About the only way to get a surprise inspection is if someone dies from food poisoning.
Jeez, I don’t see what the big deal is. The dead rat was only on the floor, it’s not like it was on a table. I bet if you turned the lights down low enough you wouldn’t even notice.
Had they scraped him off the floor prior to painting and tenderized him, you could have had rat pate.
Mmmm…yummy.
I, um, once did mouth to mouse resucitation. Really.
I accidently dropped a weight off the top of a cage into it. I didn’t actually hit this little mouse, biut I scared him so bad he seized up. Whiskers went stiff, wet himself, the whole bit. Anyway, he was just a baby, barely got his fur, so I felt pretty bad. I looked at him, all limp in the palm of my hand, and blew into his open mouth. Then I did a few one-fingered chest compressions. Damned if he didn’t start up again! :eek:
I ended up taking him home. He lived out his span quite happily. Oh, and his name was Lazarus! 
Ewwwwwwwwwww…