Got second degree burn in restaurant... Grrrr

[Mark42]

Took the kids to the local pizza shop for lunch on Saturday. It is staffed by Mexicans behind the counter, and the wait staff are the cute girls from the local highschool.

I told the waitress to just warm the pizza slices for the kids because they don't like them hot. She walks over to the counter and tells that to the cook. I know she told him to just warm them because I heard her. The slices come and the cheeze is boiling on top. I tell the kids not to touch them and have to wait for them to cool off. After a minute or so I try mine, and its hot. So hot I pull it back and hot sauce runs down my lip and chin. I have limited sensation there from an injury that damaged the nerve. When I get home my wife asks what happened to my lip, and in the mirror I see its got blisters and my chin is all red.

I can't tell you how angry I am about this. The waitress specifically told the cook to just warm them. But seeing as he doesn't understand or speak English, we get over heated pizza that burned me.

I run into this more and more frequently. People who can't speak english well enough to understand what you want. They just shake their head "yes" and pretend they know what you want. Its the business owners fault for hiring the cheapest people they can find and have no standard for what constitutes a qualified worker. Learning English should NOT be "on the job training".

I am going to tell the owner of the pizza place exactly what happened and how luck he is my kids didn't get burned because he would be sued for injury and pain and suffering.

 

[JustJason]

Re: Got second degree burn in restaurant... Grrrr

If he hired people with phd's in english then you'd be paying 20 bucks a slice..........
Other than that.... next time use your pinky as a thermometer... and maybe teach your kids to use their pinkys too.

ps~ it annoys me to when spanglish seems to be more and more common. There is nothing wrong with declaring a national language... lots of other nations do it.

 

[SS MAYFLOAT]

Re: Got second degree burn in restaurant... Grrrr

If they used a commercial microwave, they probably overheated it. Commercial microwaves have double or triple the power of a standard household unit. Kids at our stores have a hard time realizing that heating a cup of soup for 30 seconds is enough in a commercial one. It is easy enough to do if your not aware of the difference. It still isn't an excuse if you only asked for it to be warmed up and not hot. Sorry to hear about your burns. Lip burns take forever to heal it seems. Long time ago when I smoked, I'll never forget the time I put the lit end of the cigarette in my lips. Never did that again

 

[BoatBuoy]

Re: Got second degree burn in restaurant... Grrrr

Pizza being hot in a pizzeria. Imagine that.

 

[cheburashka]

Re: Got second degree burn in restaurant... Grrrr

I doubt that the restaurant hired "Mexicans." Did you ask for their passports? Chances are they hired Mexican-Americans. Dumb, underpaid kids who don't pay attention. I used to be that way back when I worked in the glorious world of serving up fast food for minimum wage, but nobody ever said "There were a bunch of White kids behind the counter."

What makes you think the cook didn't understand the instructions? When I think the number of times a native speaker of English has screwed up my order at a restaurant, often repeatedly, I really have to wonder whether this was a language problem. There are so many other reasonable explanations.

Here's what happens to me at restaurants: I can't eat meat. It makes me sick. I order all of my food with no meat in it. Guess what? There's often meat in the food and I have to have it redone. First off, I don't take a bite until I've probed it to check for meat. I asked them to do something that they don't normally do, so it's my job to make sure they did it the way I asked. Secondly, I don't threaten to sue the restaurant, and I don't make assumptions about the ethnic heritage or competence of the help. I just ask them to do it again.

Now if it was coffee, that would be a different story. . .

 

[wildmaninal]

Re: Got second degree burn in restaurant... Grrrr

Pizza being hot in a pizzeria. Imagine that.

You took the words right out of my mouth BB. Sorry to hear about the burn, you seem to be a good man so don't take this to personal. What kind of pizza place will only warm a pizza?

Reminds me of the Mc Donalds hot coffee spilling incident, where the lady spilled a hot cup of coffee on her lap. After that incident they had to put "hot coffee" or something like that on the side of the cup, and they even have it in spanish now . If I get a cup of coffee I expect it to be hot, if I get a slice of pizza I expect it to be hot, if I get any other fast food I expect it to be hot. There are reasons that certain foods half to be cooked at a certain temperature, even frozen foods.

 

[MrBossman]

Re: Got second degree burn in restaurant... Grrrr

Not their fault they dont speak english. Im sure they are legal and of course they have provided all of the health cards required to prove they dont have TB,,,,,,,,This thread will be closed the second you say anything about illegal aliens so Im sure they were legal. lol

 

[ne7800]

Re: Got second degree burn in restaurant... Grrrr

comming soon to a town near you "Marks PIzzaria" but seriously sorry about your lip

 

[oops!]

Re: Got second degree burn in restaurant... Grrrr

actually this is a very common problem....

(not your individual situation mark..it never should have happened....and im sorry it happened to you...be glad its not your boat building hands... )

but there has been articals, written on the hot sauces in pizza....the cheese forms an insulator and the sauce can get really really hot......above 212 deg.

this is especially bad with young-uns.....they burn thier mouths really easy....

may i suggest you take a step back for a second....take a few deep breaths before you write the letter to the owner.....(yes he must be contacted)....then your letter will be more well recived...

i hope you get better soon my friend

cheers
oops

 

[jbjennings]

Re: Got second degree burn in restaurant... Grrrr

Sorry to hear about your lip......

However, as far as who's at fault.......
"I told the waitress to just warm the pizza for the kids because they don't like them hot". I speak decent English but I had trouble understanding that myself. I had the misconception that pizza in a restaurant was already served hot. I can definitely see someone asking to get the pizza warmed by the cook because it was cold, but not cooled because it was hot. I can also understand the cook only hearing "warm the pizza" instead of "warm the pizza because the kids don't like it hot". How do you do this?? Wouldn't it have been more clear if you asked the waitress to make sure the pizza was cooled some so it wasn't too hot?, When you ask someone to warm something from my experience--------they warm it.

Now don't get all worked up, that was just my observation from reading your quote and I'm only saying that a simpleton like myself would probably just have heard "warm the pizza" because I would have been thinking about 3 things at once and made a mistake. And it wouldn't have been because I didn't understand English.
You also said when it came the cheese was "boiling on top". That's a good indication to me that the stuff was HOT HOT HOT, and I wouldn't have tried it until I had waited for it to cool off. I despise a burnt tongue!! Totally annoying for a day or so.

A bad situtation for sure, but I'm thinking at least part of the fault lies with the pizza eater and not the pizza warmer....:redface:

JBJ

 

[waterinthefuel]

Re: Got second degree burn in restaurant... Grrrr

Mark, you don't blow on your food first as a precaution? I mean....if the cheese is visibly hot and you just bite down thinking that in 1 minute it miraculously cooled down to eating temps.....I mean c'mon. I want my food hot. I want it to burn my mouth. I want to be able to blow on it to cool it off until it's cooled enough to eat.

This thread, although your lip may have been hurt bad and I do feel sorry for you about that.....has no point.

 

[cheburashka]

Re: Got second degree burn in restaurant... Grrrr

Not their fault they dont speak english. Im sure they are legal and of course they have provided all of the health cards required to prove they dont have TB,,,,,,,,This thread will be closed the second you say anything about illegal aliens so Im sure they were legal. lol

We don't know that they don't speak English. We don't know that they're illegal. We sure as hell know know that they have TB. All we know is that they screwed up an order and they had brown skin. When a thread starts featuring posts which assume that a person with brown skin must be an illegal alien who doesn't speak English and probably has TB, perhaps it's time to shut that thread down.

 

[Mark42]

Re: Got second degree burn in restaurant... Grrrr

Just to clarify a few things.

1) You are right, they are not Mexicans, they are from Guatamala or El Salvador, I forget exactly which. It has been a while since my wife spoke with them (in spanish). They are here illegally, trying to claim asylum from oppressive government. These guys have been working at this pizza joint for at least 3 years now. Time they learned English, no?

2) Pizzas are on the counter on display (with chicken, broccoli, 3 cheezes, ground beef, etc), often completely cooled to room temperature, so when someone orders a slice or two, they have to put it in the oven and heat it up. Thats why I told the waitress not to make it hot, just warm. None of you folks ever see fancy pizza on display on the counter???

3) Yes we knew it was hot when served, and the waitress apologized. So we waited and tested it, and tested it and tested it. Christ, I'm 50 years old, ya think I never had hot pizza served to me before?????

4) You got a 4 year old? To a 4 year old 10 minutes heating, then 15 minutes cooling is FOREVER. Thats 25 minutes of expecting your kids to sit still in a pizza joint waiting and waiting and waiting. I know your kids are perfect, but mine are just normal. They get tired of waiting.

The point here is that I should not have to compensate for some illegal's from Central America or any other place that are working a job where they need to speak english.

I should not have to get pizza boiling hot when I wanted it just warmed because the work does not understand english.

I should not have to wait 15 minutes for food to cool to the requested temperature so we can eat it just because the cook can't understand english.

Oh, brother...

 

[Mark42]

Re: Got second degree burn in restaurant... Grrrr

We don't know that they don't speak English. We don't know that they're illegal. We sure as hell know know that they have TB. All we know is that they screwed up an order and they had brown skin. When a thread starts featuring posts which assume that a person with brown skin must be an illegal alien who doesn't speak English and probably has TB, perhaps it's time to shut that thread down.

My wife is Honduran. That is why she speaks Spanish. She came to the US legally at the age of 17, applied for citizenship and got it a few years later. All my inlaws are either Honduran or some other hispanic nationality. They are all here legally, and guess what? THEY ALL SPEAK ENGLISH. In fact all the hispanics I know who came to the USA and got their citizenship SPEAK ENGLISH. Some better than others, but it is a big tip-off that the hispanics that do not speak english are probably not here legally. That is a generalization, but more true than false.

So it especially rubs me the wrong way when I see people who are here illegally not making the effort to learn the language or apply for citizenship. If my wife and inlaws did it, so can the illegals.

And another thing, if you saw my wife you would not think she is hispanic. Why? Because like most of her countrymen, she is light skinned, light eyes and does not look like the native central americans with jet black straight hair, dark brown eyes and dark skin that most people think Hispanics look like.

Yes, I know a little bit about racism. I have my share of people thinking my wife is the "house keeper" when they hear her accent on the phone. So I hold the "undocumented workers" to a higher standard.

 

[captquest]

Re: Got second degree burn in restaurant... Grrrr

no caliente, por favor

 

[eaglejim]

Re: Got second degree burn in restaurant... Grrrr

Mark do what we do,we do not eat out threw trial and error we have learned to make our own pizza and I never have a problem with saying the way I would like the pizza and they always get it right

 

[BoatBuoy]

Re: Got second degree burn in restaurant... Grrrr

Just to clarify a few things.

2) Pizzas are on the counter on display (with chicken, broccoli, 3 cheezes, ground beef, etc), often completely cooled to room temperature,...

That would be a violation of the health laws here. I'd move on to another pizzeria.

 

[WizeOne]

Re: Got second degree burn in restaurant... Grrrr

I doubt that the restaurant hired "Mexicans." . . .

Still at it, I see!

 

[SgtMaj]

Re: Got second degree burn in restaurant... Grrrr

Pizza being hot in a pizzeria. Imagine that.

That was my first thought, but then I read what he wrote about how he asked for it not to be very hot.

 

[Kenny1970]

Re: Got second degree burn in restaurant... Grrrr

Man by the title of this trend I thought you were going to say that they spilt a boiling pot of coffee on you or in your lap.Then it would be there falt.
I like burning marshmellows on a stick in a fire, but I put the flame out before I eat it.

I Would get mad if I paid for a pizza and it was not hot.
Maby I am weard but I put my finger in it before I put it in my mouth because have been burned before when I was a kid,,but that was my mistake for not waiting for it to cool.

Sorry you got burned and I am glad you kids did not follow and do the same thing.