The incident occurred Thursday at Buttercup Bakery at Lexington Market in Baltimore, Maryland. In the video uploaded to Facebook Thursday by Milton Mitchell, which has been viewed more than 830,000 times, a rat crawls onto a pile of cookies as an onlooker yells, "Just grab him by the neck!"
According to Buttercup Bakery general manager Mike Mastro, the staff worked until 11 p.m. Thursday cleaning the stall with bleach after the incident.
"This is the first time [this happened], and it wasn't even my fault," Mastro told the Baltimore Sun on Sunday.
"We just want our customers to know that we're doing everything that we can. Unfortunately it happened to us. It could have been any stall, but it's no excuse. It happened," employee Crystal Adolph told WBAL Friday.
Stacey Pack, a spokesperson for Lexington Market, also told the Baltimore Sun that the entire property and individual stalls at the market are treated by a pest control contractor at least twice a week.
"We follow all the same rules that everyone else has to follow in Baltimore City," Pack said.