Woods Hill Table reopens
“We are open and looking forward to welcoming our neighbors and friends back,” owner Kristin Canty said.
Woods Hill Table reopened September 22 after a cluster of salmonella cases affected more than a dozen people in recent weeks.
Laboratory testing put the case count at 14, Public Health Director Melanie Dineen told The Acton Bridge. That included nine employees and five customers.
State and local officials investigated, and Dineen confirmed it’s safe to enjoy Woods Hill’s acclaimed food.
“We are open and looking forward to welcoming our neighbors and friends back,” owner Kristin Canty said in a statement emailed to The Bridge.
Customers who contracted salmonella generally ate at Woods Hill between August 20 and 22, Dineen said. Health officials started investigating on September 8 as cases cropped up.
Employees started undergoing testing, and Woods Hill agreed to close on September 16 after tests found someone with an asymptomatic case.
Workers will need two negative test results before they can return, Dineen said.
State epidemiologists contacted all affected patrons, Dineen wrote in a prior memo to Acton’s Board of Health.
Canty told The Bridge after her restaurant temporarily shuttered that they take food safety “very seriously” and were cooperating with authorities.
Dineen spent part of the day on September 22 at Woods Hill ahead of its reopening.
Officials “feel confident that control measures that are put in place will prevent additional illness,” she told The Bridge.
Canty opened Woods Hill in West Acton in 2015. The brand has won rave reviews, and Canty has since expanded her restaurant footprint.
Dineen described this as a “time-limited outbreak.”
Although case counts climbed in recent days, those weren’t people who suddenly fell ill. Someone could have tested positive weeks ago and had their case recorded in another town without immediately being linked to the Woods Hill cluster, Dineen said.
“The investigation is ongoing,” she told The Bridge, and officials don’t yet know what specifically caused the outbreak.
September 22, 10:34 p.m.: This story has been updated.
