Chipotle temporarily closes Virginia restaurant after illnesses reported

A Chipotle logo at a Washington, D.C, store
(Image credit: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

Chipotle shares closed down by 4.3 percent on Tuesday after the Mexican grill chain temporarily closed a Virginia restaurant where customers had reportedly fallen ill. The company said the shutdown in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Sterling, Virginia, came after a "small number" of reported cases of symptoms consistent with norovirus, which it noted "does not come from our food supply." The company said the restaurant would undergo a "complete sanitization" before reopening. The scare came as the restaurant chain struggles to recover from damage it suffered during previous food safety incidents, including an E. coli outbreak and a norovirus case in 2015. Chipotle has since altered its cooking methods and provided more food-safety training for workers.

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.