The Consumer Complaints Blog

Here are a couple of incidents that happened about 3 years ago, but it pretty much turned me off of eating pizza for a long time. At least pizza that is not made at home.

I had injured my foot somehow. The method is not really important and I can’t quite remember anyway. The important thing is that I could only walk about as quickly as a turtle with a broken leg.

My wife and I were making our way home when we decided that we were both really hungry. Not having anything in the fridge we decided we’d stop and grab a pizza on the way home.

We were leaving the subway and I tell her to go ahead and get the pizza because it would take me a while to make my way up the stairs. She nodded and made a beeline for Pizza Pizza.

As I was hobbling towards the store, a stocky little guy passed me. He was carrying one of those bags that keeps pizza warm on a delivery. Being in the parking lot, I figured he was coming back from delivering a pizza.

This Pizza Pizza is at Yonge and Sheppard, and the kitchen is pretty visible from the outside, so I watched him while I waited for my wife.

He walked through the back door, entered the kitchen, put the pizza warmer bag on the counter, and grabbed a hunk of pizza dough to start kneading it with his hands. Hands that probably handled money from the customer, groped his steering wheel while he drove, and no doubt did other things hands do while he was in the privacy of his car, alone.

A pinky coated in a film of snot…fingernails packed with dandruff…his right palm speckled with a spray of mucus from a sneeze…I have no proof and I can only imagine. But it was enough for me.

I opened the side door, situated near the counter where my wife stood while she waited to be served. “Let’s go.” I barked, and without hesitation but puzzled, she left the store (I explained to her later why I acted that way.)

After vowing never to go to Pizza Pizza, we decided to try Pizzaville, also at Yonge and Sheppard. This was a few weeks later, at night.

The following is my wife’s account:

I order a medium pizza and chicken wings.

After taking my money and preparing the order, the cook shoves it in the oven to heat it. Seeing that this would take a while, he sits down to wait. I sit facing away from the kitchen and him, but I watch him in the reflection of the window. He’s far more interesting than the lifeless street outside.

It is a slow night, so he begins to work on some paperwork. Nothing wrong with that, right? He jots a few things down here and there, adds some numbers, then shoves an index finger in his ear to itch it.

Okay. that’s gross, but I’ll let it go. After all, he doesn’t know that I’m watching him, and everyone does it, right?

But he really gets into it.. He switches his pen to the other hand and shoves the other index finger in his ear. Then his pinky. He digs and pokes, twirls and picks, itches and scratches until finally, he’s satisfied. A sigh of relief quietly passes his lips.

Oh….just a second. His head is itchy now. The same hand that itched his ear now goes up to his head.

With a frenetic scratch, he looks at his watch and sees that it’s time to take my order out of the oven.

And he doesn’t even wash his hands. Just like the Pizza Pizza guy.

My wife is ashamed that she still took the pizza and chicken wings, despite watching all of this. She claims that he never actually touched the food with his hands, using utensils to put it in their boxes. But her claim doesn’t comfort me, and we haven’t gone back.

Yes, these two stories aren’t that bad you may think. I agree.

I’m not naive enough to believe food is always prepared in sanitary conditions. I know that my standards and expectations are set far too high for the norm. I know that the factory or restaurant environment is not as clean as it should be. But it’s the standards of staff, and their work ethic, that disgusts me.

Wash your hands if you’re going to be touching my food, especially if they’ve been picking your ass!