HARLEM — A woman claims she discovered a rat's head in her Popeyes chicken.
Rosemary Thomas said she found the fried head in her food at a Harlem Popeyes restaurant, at 2730 Frederick Douglass Boulevard on West 145th Street. She posted pictures of it to her Facebook profile.
She was at the restaurant with her sister, daughter and niece, according to the post.
"This is clearly a rat and they have the nerve to have a 5 rating by the department of health," she wrote in the Facebook post.
"My daughter is traumatized. I had to take her to urgent care last night, vomited with diarrhea all day."
Thomas did not respond to multiple attempts to contact her made by DNAinfo.
According to the city Department of Health's website, the Harlem fried chicken chain was last inspected on April 21, 2016 and received an "A" grade.
But the year before, inspectors wrote that the facility was "not vermin proof" and has "harborage or conditions conducive to attracting vermin to the premises and/or allowing vermin to exist," according to the DOH's website.
Renee Kopkowski, a spokeswoman for Popeyes, said the corporate office has reached out to the franchise owner regarding the incident.
She said it's not common to find unusual items in the chain's chicken, but she said when things are found they usually turn out to be chicken organs.
She said the company will be in contact with the supplier to figure out what happened.
Kopkowski said the franchise owner — who could not be reached for comment — is upset regarding the incident. She said Popeyes has contacted the health department and they had not found anything unusual in the restaurant Monday.
She said Thomas is expected to bring her chicken to the restaurant Monday and meet with the franchise owner to test it.
The health department told DNAinfo New York it received a 311 complaint this morning regarding the Harlem Popeyes and sent a public health sanitarian to investigate.
