“I can’t say that on TV.”

This was the response by City-County Council Member La Keisha Jackson after seeing video shot inside a small combo restaurant/convenience store in her district on the northeast side of Indianapolis.

A pair of video clips surfaced over the New Year’s Eve/Day weekend. They show a customer walking into the kitchen where several workers are walking around and, at times, preparing food in containers set on the floor which is covered in sections by cardboard. The workers are wearing socks and sandals while preparing orders. They occasionally try to block the camera, but the customer fends them off.

The second clip shows the customer recording the video walking out of the kitchen to the front of the business where a mouse is in clear view on the floor.

Monday morning, a group of elected officials and community leaders gathered in the parking lot of the business to express their outrage.

“Myself and everybody here today do not want these people to be in business in this location, in our community at all. We’re here to shut them down,” said City-County Council Member Keith Graves.

The Marion County Public Health Department had already closed down the business. An inspector arrived Monday morning at the advertised opening time for the business. The eatery was locked with no one apparently inside. After finding some improperly disposed of grease behind the building, a closure notice was posted on the front door.

The restaurant at the corner of North Post Road and 42^nd Street has come under increasing scrutiny. In a five-month span, inspectors made ten separate visits responding to complaints and garbage piling up outside, grease being improperly disposed of and in October a family of five says they all became ill after eating chicken from the business.

Efforts to contact the owner, Omar Siedahmed were unsuccessful.

Christina Hodgeson also would like a word with the owner over the name of the now-shuttered business: Jordan’s Fish and Chicken.

Hodgeson is the off-site manager for the authentic Jordan’s Fish and Chicken which is a known brand in Central Indiana. The authentic Jordan’s once had several stores but pared down to just two during the pandemic.

Now, Hodgeson says there is an ongoing effort to scrub the Jordan’s brand off of new restaurants that have pirated the name.

“We spent the better part of last year trying to figure out how we could get control of the name and possibly stop people from using it by becoming a franchise and then that is an uphill battle. It’s not a simple task, and we’re not McDonald’s,” said Hodgeson.

Meanwhile, the northeast eatery remains closed and cannot reopen until the Public Health Department approves.  Inspectors are due back at the restaurant Tuesday.