Forget all the clichés and jokes you’ve heard about the meat served at some restaurants specializing in certain types of exotic cuisine.
A Mexican food establishment located in Greencastle, Indiana was closed for two days last week after health officials said a deer carcass was discovered in the process of being butchered in the kitchen there.
And it gets better.
According to a report in the Greencastle Banner-Graphic, employees of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Division allegedly delivered the deer, a victim of a run-in with a motor vehicle, to the back door of the restaurant.
I ask you, fine readers of the Outdoor Newshound, where else are you going to find stories like this???
Inspectors from the Indiana Board of Health went to the La Charreada Mexican Restaurant Wednesday afternoon after they received a complaint about the carcass from an electrician who happened to be in the kitchen when it was carried in the back door.
When the inspectors arrived, they reportedly found an employee butchering the deer on the floor of the kitchen, and large pieces of meat had been cut from the carcass, said Environmental Health Specialist Darrell Brackney.
Brackney stressed there was no indication that employees or the restaurant intended to serve deer meat to customers—or that it had ever done so in the past.
The newspaper reported that Socrates Montano, a district manager and member of the family that owns 32 Mexican restaurants in Indiana and Arkansas, said the employees who were responsible for bringing the deer into the restaurant have been fired. He denied that the employees butchered the deer in the kitchen.
The restaurant manager told the local newspaper that DNR officers acquainted with the employee brought the road-killed deer to the restaurant at the employee’s request.
Putnam County health inspectors cited the restaurant for a “gross unsanitary occurrence and condition,” according to the inspection report.
The kitchen was thoroughly cleaned and the restaurant re-opened for business Friday evening.
Rumors of new menu items, like Backstrap Con Queso, or Red Chile Venison Echiladas, were unfounded.