The owner of a popular Largo restaurant that remained open while awaiting help from authorities after a female customer died of cardiac arrest said Friday he is not sure whether it was the right decision not to close.
“It’s just a tragic situation,” said Fred Rosenthal, 80, whose restaurant, Jaspers, swiftly became the target of online misinformation in recent days as social media scrutiny intensified.
Rosenthal said the restaurant’s manager did not want to spark a rumor mill or cause any panic in the restaurant, so the staff continued serving customers as a portion of the building was closed and the woman’s family engaged with emergency medical workers, police and a funeral home.
“We’ve never had anything like this happen before,” Rosenthal said. “Hindsight is 20/20.”
Medics were called to Jaspers just before 6 p.m. Wednesday after the woman, who authorities have not identified, was found unconscious in the restroom, officials said. Efforts to resuscitate the woman were not successful, and she was pronounced dead just before 6:40 p.m.
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Minutes later, Prince George’s County police were called to the restaurant to conduct a death investigation, said department spokesperson Brian Fischer, but no foul play was suspected. Authorities on scene at Jaspers notified the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner at 7:12 p.m., Fischer said.
A spokesman for the medical examiner said state officials declined the case because it did not meet the office’s criteria, which does not include deaths by natural causes that raise no other suspicions. The woman’s body was released to her family, police said, and later removed by a private funeral home about two hours later.
Fischer said officers remained at the restaurant until the funeral home left.
Jaspers customers continued to filter in and out of the crowded restaurant until the establishment closed out dinner service for the evening.
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Subsequent posts to social media whipped up controversy about whether the decades-old community mainstay, billed online as an upscale casual American eatery, should have closed as soon as the woman’s death was discovered.
The online dust-up prompted Rosenthal to apologize to any customers who felt the situation was mishandled. But Rosenthal also said the criticism felt hurtful to his staff and disrespectful to the family of the woman — all of whom, he said, were trying to navigate a difficult situation the best they could in the moment.
The restaurant was packed with patrons Wednesday night when someone reported there was a woman unconscious in the restroom, he said. Restaurant management called emergency services, who determined that she had died.
The women’s restroom was closed off to other customers, and those on scene directed all customers to the men’s restroom for about two hours, Rosenthal said.
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The restaurant owner was not at Jaspers that night, he said, but at his Bethesda home after visiting his son near Baltimore. Rosenthal said he received a call about the woman’s death at around 11 p.m., nearly two hours after the woman’s body had been removed by the funeral home.
The area of the body was closed off with a drape, he said. The restaurant staff was instructed by police that it was not allowed to do anything more until the coroner arrived, according to Rosenthal. The staff was under the impression that the coroner would arrive swiftly, but that didn’t happen, he said, adding that the situation ended about 9 p.m.
Rosenthal said he had learned the family’s name from an incident report and was planning to call them to share his condolences.
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