Vermin Found Living In Popular Square Pub

Amidst a flurry of health code violations, popular Harvard Square brewhouse John Harvard’s was forced by the City of Cambridge Inspectional Service (CCIS) to change extermination companies in May—partially but not completely ending what some diners have delicately termed “a rat problem.”

The restaurant has been cited for dozens of violations by the CCIS over the past several years. They run the gamut from employees not using handsinks to use of unsanitary food containers to rodent sightings.

An anonymous complaint filed with the CCIS on January 6 reported “mice running rampant in [the] dining room area.”

Jeremy Vonflatern, an assistant manager at the restaurant, said the staff had gotten frequent complaints regarding mouse or rat sightings.

“For a little while in there it was getting kind of ridiculous,” he said.

Vonflatern added, however, that John Harvard’s switched extermination companies in mid-May—they now use Ecolab—and since then, proactive surveillance has decreased the problem.

But there is still the occasional incident of diners glimpsing the furry creatures scuttling along the floors. Lola O. Ajilore ’05, who had lunch at the restaurant three weeks ago, said she saw an animal—she wasn’t sure if it was a rat or a mouse—running around.

“We saw it coming from underneath a big round table,” she said. “It came out from there and sort of paused in the hallway and was chilling there for a while.”

She said a waitress didn’t seem surprised to hear the story.

“So we start freaking out and our waitress is right there and she runs to go tell her manager and the manager comes over in a second and says, ‘We’re in the basement of a 200-year-old building and we have a problem, but we’re dealing with it,’” Ajilore said.

Yu-Ping Chan ’03 remembered telling a waitress a similar story during a meal at the restaurant several months ago and hearing in response, “Oh, we get them all the time.”

According to Vonflatern however, the problem is steadily lessening.

“We haven’t gotten them recently, we really haven’t had any issues since Ecolab’s been in so often,” he said. “We’re pretty proactive as far as getting them in there for that. We really haven’t had any problems since.”

John Harvard’s last inspection by CCIS was May 29. The inspector who conducted the sweep said most major violations had been addressed and the remaining ones were scheduled for remedy in early June. Vonflatern said each of the pending ones had since been taken care of.

—Megan C. Harney contributed to the reporting of this story.