636160209212436744-golden-pondsThe Monroe County Department of Public Health has closed the Golden Ponds Restaurant and Party House, at 500 Long Pond Road in Greece. The restaurant was closed Friday after as many as 60 people reported being sick after eating at the restaurant on Thanksgiving Day, said John Ricci, spokesman for the Monroe County Health Department.

Ricci said the Health Department started getting calls about people experiencing severe diarrhea on Friday morning. While one or two calls about a given restaurant are not uncommon, “when you start to get multiple calls, similar time of day, all with the same story, that pretty quickly leads us to think something might be going on,” he said. The department has talked to 25 to 30 people; as many as 60 people were reported as being ill.

Health Department inspectors visited Golden Ponds restaurant on Friday. They inspected the facility, interviewed the staff, reviewed records and collected samples of leftover food. Following the collection of samples, the inspectors ordered that the rest of the leftover food be destroyed, Ricci said.

“Having done all that and given what was seeming to turn out to be a pretty significant number of calls coming in, we thought it best to close them,” Ricci said. This is a relatively rare action, with fewer than three restaurants closed each year, he said.