Pizza Pizza. That’s Just Nasty.
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!
November 11th, 2006 at 2:32 pm
Don’t be a weenie. Things like danruff and snot are good for you, they enhance the protective capabilities of your immune system. Plus, if you got enough seasoning on the pizza you won’t taste ‘em. Get real and get healthy.
RCP
June 10th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
At Christmas I bought my son a Pizza Pizza Club card which turned out to be a dud. After numerous phone calls and letters we still have not received a return phone call or a letter How’s that for pitiful service. We will never use Pizza Pizza again.
January 16th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
completely agree with you. Had the same thing happen to me last night when I went to the one in Stoney Creek Ontario. Guy handled my pizza with money from his delivery still in his hand
April 26th, 2009 at 9:58 am
The Pizza Pizza guy from Don Mills and Sheppard area was late almost 10 minutes and he started crying when customer service told him he couldn’t charge me.
He then stormed out WITH MY PIZZA blaming me for him losing his job, so I called customer service back and told them the story and they sent the same guy back!!
he then shoved the pizzas at me and started crying again while pointing and cursing me.
after I talked to pizza pizza customer service again and said I wasn’t going to eat anything delivered by that guy, and they offered to send another pizza. and low and behold they sent the same guy.
now i can’t order from pizza pizza or go in my lobby without being afraid of this loser.
May 16th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
Just to note: handling raw dough without gloves is not as bad as you might think. The point is – BAKING process includes intense heat-treatment that sterilizes the product. What you SHOULD worry about is handling food that is consumed FRESH – vegetables and such.
May 29th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
Okay alex. Next time you bake something, let your neighbour take a piss and wipe his ass without washing his hands and then let him kneed your dough. You can console yourself that you’re eating well heated shit when you butter up your first slice.
August 28th, 2009 at 11:48 am
THERE IS A BAD HEALTH ISSUES AT “PIZZA PIZZA”
Tuesday Augest 25th 2009
It was a nice sunny day for a bike ride.
My boyfriend and I went to Pizza Pizza for lunch.
We walking in ordered what we wanted.
My boyfriend Don Windibank paid for the meals.
As the casher took the money, handled the cash and gave us our pop.
Then he “The cashier” walked over and started making our food.
“He didn’t wash his hands or even put on gloves”.
As we were walking away to get a seat and wait for our food.
We looked at the way he was making our food after handling the cash?
He even wiped his nose!
when he looked at us looking at him!
Don walked back over to the cashier and said to the cashier.
Did you wash your hands and the cashier said NO.!
Who knows what else he was touching before he handled our food?
We were very disappointed, disgusted and had to leave! “Of course”
We asked for our money back, but we had to pay for the pop.
I think we shouldn’t have had to pay for a pop!
What do you think?
I don’t think we can ever go to a pizza place again after what we went though that day!
We have a complaint about the Pizza Pizza
At 5400 Tecumseh Rd. E, Windsor Ontario.
After are experience at this Pizza place we have never had pizza or even ordered pizza and I don’t think we ever will!
To tell you the truth I ordered a rap and you don’t bake that!
September 15th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
Sounds like Pizzaville just north of Sheppard on the west side of Yonge. The guy there took my money, prepared the food, then sat down to do some paperwork while it was cooking. He picked his ear, scratched his head a couple of times, then when the food was ready, went to get it without washing his hands. Yum yum!
May 2nd, 2010 at 2:10 am
I just was informed by Pizza Pizza that I would have to go to the lobby of my building to get my food, however I am in a wheelchair. This is ridiculous.
July 23rd, 2010 at 8:12 am
I used to work at Pizza Pizza and it is a horrible job, they will get anyone to work there because they go through employee’s like crazy, so you will get any joe blow who doesn’t give a damn in there.The problem there is you have to be clean shaven everyday, wear dumbass uniforms and work till 3AM and then at 3AM you have to count all the product in the store to prove that your not stealing anything and u have to take deliveries til 3:15AM so sometimes you wouldn’t get out till 4AM that job was a nightmare.So the next time some moron does something disgusting to your food don’t blame them blame the corporate office of Pizza Pizza and the way they run things in there stores.
July 23rd, 2010 at 10:25 am
No matter how shitty you are treated, you don’t have the right to take it out on some innocent guy that’s giving his hard earned money to pay your salary. You don’t like the job? Quit or take it out on your boss but don’t be a prick to the customer that just wants a sanitary meal. He had to work some shitty job to pay for his slice of pizza too. I think your anger is completely misplaced.