Chandar Chao opened Mama C’s Donuts at 5 a.m. Monday to a crowd of regular customers eager to help the family-owned business get back on its feet.
“I know I have a lot of people loving us, a lot of people supporting us,” she said through tears Monday afternoon. “I don’t know where the tears are coming from. I’m just so excited and so thankful for all the support.”
Customers got their favorite baked goods from the local shop for the first time since Aug. 8, when Toledo-Lucas County Health Department inspectors linked Mama C’s Donuts to 325 cases of norovirus in Lucas County and 69 in Wood County.
“We don’t know where its coming from, so get up and move on and do the best you can,” Mrs. Chao said.
VIDEO: Mama C’s Donuts reopens
The business was cleared to open by the health department Thursday, after the entire shop was cleaned and sanitized. St. Luke’s Hospital, for extra confidence, brought in its Xenex Disinfecting robot to clean the shop. The robot uses pulsing ultraviolet light to destroy bacterial and viral cells. It’s usually used after a hospital room is vacated and before a new patient enters.
“Anything you can’t see is what this kills,” Scott Young, business development manager for Xenex, said at the shop.
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Mrs. Chao was excited the robot would give customers even more confidence in the shop’s cleanliness.
“They’re so nice. They’re awesome,” Mrs. Chao said. “They called us Saturday morning, asking if we would accept the robot cleaning.”
Jim Joldrichsen, manager of environmental services at St. Luke’s Hospital, said he wanted to help get the shop back up and running, and show support for the shop located less than two miles from the hospital.
The robot cleaned the inside of the shop through Monday afternoon, while outside the “Maumee loves Mama C’s” Facebook group held a reopening party in the parking lot.
“Our community wants them to bounce back,” Jill Byrd, group administrator, said.
Her family was among the hundreds to catch norovirus from the shop, but she was among the first customers through the door Monday morning.
“This is something that can happen anywhere,” Ms. Byrd said. “I don’t hold it against them.”
She said Mama C’s regularly donates doughnuts to Maumee City School special events, so she wanted to give something back to them. She started selling purple T-shirts with “Maumee loves Mama C’s” written in yellow across the front. Her first order of 45 shirts sold almost immediately. She will be selling more for $12, with $5 going to Mama C’s Donuts.
The shop was operating near normalcy Monday, though some ingredients will not be replaced until the end of the week.
Contact Zack Lemon at zlemon@theblade.com, 419-724-6282 or on Twitter @zack_lemon.
First Published August 14, 2017, 3:28 p.m.
