Kebab Shop and its beef supplier targeted in E. coli lawsuit
The father of a young girl who became seriously ill after eating at a Kebab Shop in Orange County has sued the San Diego-based chain and its beef supplier over their alleged role in an E. coli outbreak.
Jeffrey Gogue, who filed the suit on behalf of his 3-year-old daughter, Kalea Gogue, alleges that she began developing bloody diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and dehydration a day after eating a beef kofta plate on April 28 at The Kebab Shop’s Costa Mesa location. Her symptoms, though, quickly worsened, requiring hospitalization for 17 days.
Although she has been released from the hospital, she is expected to face a lifelong health battle associated with the injury to her kidney, the lawsuit states.
“We’ve sued not only The Kebab Shop, but we sued its supplier, Olympia Foods,” attorney Ron Simon said during a news conference Thursday in San Diego. He is representing the Gogue family, along with San Diego-based trial attorney John Gomez.
“In this case, Olympia Foods supplied the raw beef to the company, The Kebab Shops, and unfortunately, when the beef left the factory from Olympia Foods, it was contaminated with E. coli. That’s something that should have been caught through routine testing that’s required of all food manufacturers. It didn’t, and it got to The Kebab Shop, unfortunately in a poisonous state. And then The Kebab Shop didn’t cook the meat to the proper temperature to kill whatever E. coli might be left, and that’s exactly how this outbreak happened,” Simon said.
The lawsuit comes nearly a week after the California Department of Public Health announced it was investigating an E. coli outbreak linked to beef kofta served at several California locations of The Kebab Shop restaurant chain. As of May 19, it reported that nine California residents have been infected with the outbreak strain, with symptoms beginning to show up March 27 and running through April 30. Five individuals have been hospitalized, and two have developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a severe complication that can lead to acute kidney failure. No deaths have been reported.
Locally, two people have become infected with E. coli after eating at local The Kebab Shop locations, according to the County of San Diego. One was hospitalized but has since been released. Those locations were not identified.
The state public health department said that interviews with ill individuals indicate that grilled beef kofta served at The Kebab Shop is the likely outbreak source. It also noted that the chain is cooperating with public health officials and voluntarily paused sales of grilled beef kofta at all locations on May 18.
“At TKS, nothing matters more to us than the health, safety, and well-being of our customers and the communities we serve,” the company stated on its website. “We are deeply saddened and heartbroken by the recent foodborne illness reports, and our hearts go out to every individual and family who has been impacted … While we are fully aware of the recently filed lawsuit, it is our company policy not to comment on the specifics of ongoing legal proceedings. Our immediate focus remains exactly where it should be: supporting our customers and ensuring this never happens again.”
The chain started in downtown San Diego and now has 55 locations in three states.
The lawsuit, which Simon said is the first of many more such legal complaints to come, specifically accuses The Kebab Shop and Olympia Foods of negligence; liability for importing, manufacturing, distributing, and selling a defective product; and breach of implied warranties by “holding out an unreasonably dangerous product (i.e. product containing E. coli) to the public as being safe when they knew or had reason to know that the product was not safe and that the public would consume the product.”
He noted that Ron Simon and Associates has been retained by several of the families affected by the outbreak, but he pointed out that his firm does not handle class-action lawsuits because “all of these victims are different, they have different damages, different circumstances, and they live in different places.”
The lawsuit seeks unspecified economic and non-economic damages, in addition to reimbursement for court costs and attorney fees.
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This story was originally published May 28, 2026 at 5:44 PM.