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Feast to famine
By SHARON L. BOND, Neighborhood Times Business Editor
ST. PETERSBURG -- Fridays were the busiest days at Ferdinand G's Cuban-Spanish restaurant at 9089 Fourth St. N, and this one, Oct. 25, was particularly special. The expanded dining room, which almost doubled seating, was open for the first time. It seemed an immediate payoff as the lunch crowd brought in $1,000, a record. "We were excited and very happy," said Janelle Ramos, 34, who with her husband, Wayne, opened the restaurant in the summer of 2000. Customers filled the tables and bar in the original dining room and the new, padded booths in the expansion. They ordered dinners of chicken and yellow rice or waited for takeout of roast pork and Cuban sandwiches. "We had these big smiles on our faces because our restaurant was packed with people," she said. In just a few hours, the couple's ebullience would be replaced by despair. First, a former waiter called the Ramoses to tell them he had been diagnosed with hepatitis A, one of the lesser forms of liver inflammation. Then came the health inspectors. Before long, the media showed up. Business hasn't been the same since. Even though no cases of hepatitis A have been positively linked to anyone who dined at the restaurant, Ferdinand G's business has dropped off to the point of near death. "We did last month in a month what we usually do in a week," said Ramos, 52, adding that the restaurant is bringing in about $200 a day now and he needs at least $650 a day to cover costs, including rent of $2,000 per month. "We are not even paying our bills," he said. When the news broke, the couple said they didn't even think of their business, which is named for Wayne Ramos' father. Their first concern was for the waiter's health and the baby Janelle Ramos is carrying. "For the normal, healthy person, probably at the worst it (hepatitis A) will produce flulike symptoms," said Elaine Fulton-Jones, public information director for the Pinellas County Health Department. "If it is a person with a compromised immune system, it could be devastating." These could be people with HIV or cancer patients being treated with radiation or chemotherapy. Healthy people who experience the flulike symptoms such as fever, aches and intestinal problems of hepatitis A usually get over them in a few days, Fulton-Jones said. Health officials recognize six forms of hepatitis, which are labeled by the alphabet. A is transmitted via the "fecal-oral route through close person-to-person contact or ingestion of contaminated food or water," the Hepatitis Information Network Web site says. The more serious forms, such as C, can result in cirrhosis of the liver or liver cancer. Health department inspectors arrived at Ferdinand G's about the same time the Ramoses got the call from their former waiter, who had been gone from the restaurant for about two weeks. The inspectors checked the cleanliness of the restaurant and interviewed the staff about various procedures. They determined that some of the cold food was not being kept cold enough and that employees did not seem very adept at putting on food preparation gloves. Also, there was not the required sink dedicated to employee hand washing. And at the time of the inspection, the hot water was not working in the public restrooms. Wayne Ramos said the lack of hot water and the hand-washing sink were the result of recent remodeling. Instead of the sink, employees used a sanitizer machine. He said he told inspectors the Cuban sandwiches they said were not cold enough had just been made and placed in the refrigerator. Still, inspectors thought what they had seen was enough to issue a public warning, considering the waiter had been at the restaurant during his infectious period. It was the only such alert the health department issued this year, Fulton-Jones said. "The conditions were right for the hepatitis bacteria to be able to spread," she said. "That was our concern." The department does not believe the waiter got hepatitis A from the restaurant. The alert said that a food service worker employed at Ferdinand G's "has been diagnosed with hepatitis A and may have exposed patrons to the disease." It defined the disease, its symptoms and how it is transmitted. Diners who ate at the restaurant between Sept. 24 and Oct. 15 were told to see their doctors or health officials if they felt ill. That alert is what so badly damaged business at Ferdinand G's, the Ramoses said. The health department sent it to about 70 media outlets. Enough news organizations used it so that patrons were scarce after the 5 p.m. television news, the Ramoses said. The St. Petersburg Times had a story about the alert in its Oct. 26 editions. "When anyone comes in (with a hepatitis diagnosis), we ask if they work with the public. Hepatitis is one of the diseases that by law is reportable. Public health tracks that," Fulton-Jones said. State law says diseases that have a public health significance must be reported, according to Fulton-Jones. The list of 95 includes anthrax, yellow fever and sexually transmitted diseases, she said. To date, the health department has not had a positive case of hepatitis A from those tested after the warning about Ferdinand G's. However, Fulton-Jones said the department cannot sound an all-clear for the restaurant because some diners could have been tested and diagnosed elsewhere. All cases are supposed to be reported to the health department, but may not be, or may not be in a timely manner. The health department had recorded 22 hepatitis A cases in Pinellas County as of Nov. 8. In April, a worker at the Melting Pot fondue restaurant in St. Petersburg was diagnosed with hepatitis A. An alert was not issued about the Melting Pot, Fulton-Jones said, because the worker did not handle food and an inspection found no sanitation problems with the restaurant. About the same time, Polk County had an outbreak of hepatitis A. Officials confirmed 116 cases. At least one restaurant closed temporarily. When Ramos asked if media alerts had been sent out on any of the other Pinellas cases, he was told no. He feels Ferdinand G's was singled out. "If we had done something wrong, we would be the first to go to the press and say we screwed up," he said. The health department acknowledged no alerts were distributed in prior hepatitis cases because the degree of risk was not as high, duties of the infected employee did warrant it or restaurant conditions were different. In some cases, media outlets found out from people in the community. Wayne Ramos is not satisfied with that answer. He wants the health department to officially and publicly clear the restaurant. "Nobody got sick here," Ramos said. "It's evident to me we are doing something right." The health department has closed the hepatitis case involving Ferdinand G's because the incubation period ended Wednesday. But it's not over for the restaurant. On Tuesday, it was deserted at 1 p.m., an hour that was busy before Oct. 25. "We used to tell vendors to come between 3 and 4 p.m. when it had slowed down enough," Ramos said. To buy the restaurant and fix it up, the Ramoses used his 401(k) fund from work in the auto industry and her retirement from a dozen-plus years at Publix. The now have about $150,000 invested. Ramos planned to keep his job at Autoway's Toyota store, but the restaurant got too busy. Fulton-Jones said the department feels bad about the loss of business at Ferdinand G's. "It's not within our power to be able to cure this situation. We have to think about the greater good of the public. We don't want that part of it to be lost. The health department exists to look after public health." The Ramoses keep working at their restaurant, remembering how good it was. The only concession they have made to the slowdown was to close on Sunday. Friends have suggested they move or change the name of the restaurant, but those ideas don't appeal to them. "We're just barely hanging on now. People loved us before," he said. "It's an old place, but we are clean."
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