Restaurant who catered Round Rock baseball banquet closes Thursday as precaution
An entire Round Rock High School baseball team was nearly out for the count tonight for a big playoff game. They were among about 100 people who got sick after a banquet on Monday.
But the school district says the game must go on and hopefully they’ll only be down a few players.
The question on everyone’s mind is...”what happened?” Was it the catered food? Is there some sort of rapidly-spreading stomach virus going around?
“I’m confused, I’m shocked. And I just don’t have an answer,” said La Margarita General Manager Eli Aviles.
The family-owned La Margarita has been in business in Round Rock for more than 25 years. On Thursday there was a sign on the door. Closed as a precaution for a deep cleaning.
“We do caterings all the time, I had one Friday night, I had one Saturday night,” Aviles said.
The restaurant catered the fajitas at Monday night’s end of the year banquet for the Round Rock Dragon’s baseball team. It’s the second year they’ve catered the event.
He says the next day the person he had been working with on behalf of the team, texted him saying some who had attended were getting sick.
“He said he didn’t know if it was our food or if it was something else. So first thing I did was apologize and I came to the restaurant, I started doing things on my end to try to see if it was from us,” Aviles said
Round Rock ISD says nearly 100 people...that’s parents, staff and students got sick.
On Wednesday, head Coach John Carter told Fox 7 he started hearing from players Monday night saying they were throwing up and probably wouldn’t make practice. And then his wife got sick.
“Just finished watching the news and getting some paperwork done and I hear her in the background throwing up and I said ‘oh no this can’t be a coincidence’ and then next thing you know my phone starts blowing up from different people...players: ‘Coach I’m sick,’” he says.
Williamson County Health is investigating. They say they are interviewing people who got sick.
“The health department was in here yesterday. They found no major violations. And I even talked to them this morning. They interviewing some of the employees to see if they were sick. No one has been sick here that I’m aware,” Aviles said.
A representative with the health department confirms the inspector didn’t find any violations at La Margarita. But they’re still not ruling out whether it was the catered food or some sort of virus. It’s too soon to know.
“The staff that I took with me that night, I mean we were wearing gloves, no one was sick. That’s the last thing I would do is send somebody sick out there to serve some food,” Aviles said.
Jenny LaCoste-Caputo with Round Rock ISD updated us Thursday afternoon on how the players are holding up ahead of the big game.
“Most of them are better thankfully. Their directions from their Coach and also from their doctors obviously were to rest and get plenty of liquids. We still have 3 varsity players that are out today so they will not be playing the game tonight. We’re hopeful that the ones who are feeling better will feel well enough to play this evening,” she said.
“I want the public to feel safe coming here. I take pride in what I do,” Aviles said.
UIL told Fox 7 today if the other team’s coach agrees, the game could be rescheduled. But Round Rock ISD says they’re going to play this game tonight