Those cronut dreams will have to wait: The Health Department closed the SoHo bakery that makes the trendy pastries for a "severe mouse infestation."
The department investigated after a video posted on YouTube by Dominique Ansel Bakery patron Cody Pickrodt showed a little mouse scurrying across the floor of the Spring Street store as employees kneaded dough and prepared orders behind the counter.
The bakery was closed Friday afternoon for a "severe mouse infestation that requires professional pest control services," according to the Health Department.
The bakery plans to re-open Monday after extermination, said spokeswoman Amy Ma. She said any whole larger than a ballpoint pen is considered "not vermin proof."
Pickrodt told Gothamist the mouse "ran all over the place in plain view for a good 20 seconds" before he started shooting the video. He said the employees seemed to be aware of the mouse, but kept working.
He told the website he tried to show the critter to a couple waiting in line behind him, but they didn't believe him. When he showed them the video he took, he said they left the store.
An official statement from the bakery that started croissant-doughnut hybrid craze says:
"As a small one-shop bakery, we often feel like we're being looked at under a tremendous microscope. The news was dramatically sensationalized. A lot of time people don't see the larger ramifications of their actions and how a tiny video of a mouse running across the screen for 3 seconds can cause harm and damages to an honest, small business that people's livelihood depends on."
Ma told NBC 4 New York that staff spent seven hours cleaning the store Thursday and found just the one mouse. She said cleanliness is of utmost importance and the shop has received nothing but As on its health inspections in the nearly three years it's been open.
Ma also said she wished the customer who filmed the video had notified an employee so the issue could have been addressed more swiftly to "help improve the experience for all our guests rather than try to make a news story about it."
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