Fear of explosive diarrhea seems to be scaring customers away from salad chains in business districts and strip malls across the US. On Sunday, July 11, as news of a massive cyclospora outbreak—possibly linked to contaminated lettuce—made headlines, foot traffic at Chopt fell by 7.1 percent, compared to the chain’s average Sunday traffic in 2026, according to Placer.ai data. The same day, Panera Bread was down 7.4 percent, and Sweetgreen was down 3.1 percent, compared to those chains’ Sunday averages.

While Placer.ai tells WIRED that it has only ‘a few days of data to work with,’ the company says that the decline of visitors to places with ‘lettuce-heavy menus’ began around July 10. Industry averages suggest that customers were more likely to ditch salad-heavy chains, with foot traffic across quick-service chains like McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, and Wendy’s up 0.8 percent compared to their average Sunday traffic.

Shares of Sweetgreen are down 23.3 percent over the past five days. The only chain with suspected links to the outbreak is Taco Bell, with some Detroit locations posting notices that they were ‘currently unable to sell lettuce, cilantro, onion, pico de gallo and guacamole due to a nationwide recall.’

Despite the scare, not everyone is afraid of leafy greens. Two customers outside of a Sweetgreen location in Manhattan’s Financial District told WIRED on Thursday that they hadn’t even heard of the cyclospora outbreak. New York has far fewer cases than Michigan, with 510 cases so far in 2026.

At a nearby Chopt, Victoria Atweh had nothing but positive things to say about her first time visiting the salad chain: “I honestly didn’t even think about it.”