Restaurant Closed; Burgers Undercooked -- Faulty Grill Found At Mercer Island Jack In The Box

Ten days after notification of a major food-poisoning outbreak, a Jack in the Box restaurant on Mercer Island was still not cooking hamburgers at regulation temperature, health officials say.

Inspectors, who were sent to the restaurant yesterday because a food handler has hepatitis A, found the grill was not working properly: It was cooking burgers at 13 to 17 degrees below the state-required 155 degrees.

Contaminated and possibly undercooked hamburger patties served in the restaurant chain have led to the food poisoning of more than 250 Washington state residents since Jan. 3. At least 69 have been hospitalized, and two children have died from poisoning by E. coli 0157:H7 bacteria.

The Mercer Island Jack in the Box, at 3017 78th Ave. S.E., is closed until the grill is certified as operating properly by an outside expert, said Carl Osaki, acting chief of environmental health for the Seattle-King County Health Department.

Restaurant personnel were able to get the grill operating at the proper temperature while an inspector was there yesterday, but Osaki wants the further assurance about the equipment.

Robert Nugent, president of Jack in the Box, said last week that the grills in all of the chain's restaurants had been checked for proper operation and that all personnel had been retrained in proper cooking procedures.

Health officials said the restaurant yesterday also had no soap and towels for worker hand washing - the third hand-washing violation at the restaurant this month. And they said there was raw meat touching items such as lettuce that was not to be cooked.

Osaki said he wants written assurance that those problems, as well, will not recur.

"We haven't seen the Health Department report, but rest assured we'll be investigating it fully," said Sheree Zizzi, a spokeswoman in Jack in the Box's San Diego headquarters. "Our procedures clearly outline proper hygiene, food storage and cooking in accordance with state standards."

The worker with hepatitis A, meanwhile, may have infected dozens of customers. (The infection is not related to the E. coli contamination.)

Health Department officials said customers who ate sandwiches at the restaurant on Jan. 18, 19, 22 or 23 from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. could be infected. Within 14 days of eating there, they should get injections of immune globulin, which carries hepatitis A antibodies and can prevent the illness.

The hepatitis warning is an added headache for Puget Sound Power & Light Co.: Some of the line workers who came to Washington from as far away as San Francisco and southern Oregon to help repair damage from last week's windstorm may have eaten at the Mercer Island restaurant.

The Bellevue-based utility had hundreds of people working on Mercer Island after the storm, said spokeswoman Melanie Granfors. The utility is notifying all employees, contract workers and out-of-state utilities involved about the Health Department's warning.

Injections of immune globulin are available from private physicians, health-department clinics or hospital emergency rooms.

-- Times East bureau reporter Scott Williams contributed to this article.