Boil orders and restaurants - KOAM TV 7

When a water main breaks and a mandatory boil order is issued the restaurant industry has to adjust operations.

In a meeting today Parsons, Kansas officials and food vendors talked about how to handle the boil order to ensure all safety measures are in place.

The boil order in Parsons was in place from Friday evening until early Monday evening.

Before the boil order was lifted, Parsons restaurateurs and the Kansas Department of Agriculture scheduled a meeting, but state officials did not show.

Industry and city officials say the meeting was still successful without the state and this helps out in the event of another incident like this.

About 40 food service vendors showed up at the meeting to make sure everyone was on the same page when it comes to safety.

Soda machines were out of order because of the mandatory boil order at the Taco Mayo managed by Eric Strait.

"We've all been doing it long enough that we know what we're doing but it was just kind of nice to hear that certain temperatures on certain waters have to be this, or to boil this, or certain dishwashers have to have the chlorinated or the high temp," says Strait.

The group of managers and owners shared their questions with Labette County Emergency Management Director Larry Steeby and brainstormed about how they would handle the situation that had been going on since Friday.

"To make sure that they understood what they needed to do to provide quality service when the boil order comes off or even before the boil order comes off, if they choose try to operate," says Steeby.

While everyone in Parsons experienced a boil order, Strait says Taco Mayo has not lost business.  The measures it took was to get their beverage distributor to bring cases of soda and then use high temperatured water for cleaning.

"It was fairly important to have that meeting," says Strait.  "It was nice to see everybody gather together and pull together as a town, just to let everybody know that we have each other's back."

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment took 14 samples of water on Sunday and say the water does not show signs of contamination, meaning the boil order has been lifted.