Is this lady over-reacting?

[Magpie]

Chicken head found in order of wings
By CHRIS DOUCETTE, QMI Agency

TORONTO -- An Ottawa woman says she bought some take-out wings recently from a Toronto eatery and was horrified when she instead received an order of Shake ‘n’ Beak.

Among the mound of wings there was allegedly a deep-fried chicken’s head — its eyes staring up at Karen Cook.

“It was absolutely disgusting,” Cook, 44, said Monday.

The Ottawa woman, in town on business, said she went to the Wild Goose Bar & Grill, 5395 Eglinton Ave. W., in Etobicoke, for a bite to eat on Aug. 18. She ate a pound of wings there and got a second pound to go.

Later, in her hotel room, Cook claims she and a friend opened the container and found the chicken’s head.

“It was really gross,” Cook said, adding she hasn’t been able to eat wings since.

Cook tossed the wings but she saved the chicken head and brought it, beak and all, back to the restaurant the next day.

A manager “kind of shook his head,” reimbursed her for the wings, then told her to call Sysco, their supplier, she said.

Cook felt she was sent on a wild goose chase because she said the supplier assured her she would be compensated by the distributor but then never phoned back.

Martin Dobbins of Sysco has been ducking Cook’s calls for a couple weeks, she alleged Monday, despite a warning she would go to the media and call Toronto Public Health.

Public health officials told Cook there was nothing to investigate, as long as the chicken was properly cooked, no laws had been broken.

“Under Ontario law, all parts of the chicken can be sold,” Susan Sperling, a public health spokesman, confirmed. “This is more of a quality control issue.”

Dobbins admitted it was “unfortunate” but said it’s something he’s never seen in his 20 years.

“By no means was there any malicious intent,” said Dobbins, who gave the restaurant a free 40-pound case of wings for the trouble. “It’s not like it was a (human) thumb or a toe, it was a chicken part,” said Dobbins

Mike Gibbons, who works for the company that distributes the wings to Sysco, agreed.

“She found a chicken part in a box of chicken parts,” he said.

Gibbons said the wings are purchased from a company in Brazil and he finds it hard to believe a head could be mixed in with any other chicken parts because of the way the “state-of-the-art” processing plant is set up.

“It’s not impossible but the likelihood is very slim,” he said.

However, Gibbons admitted it was a “terrible” thing to have happened to a customer.

He believes the issue would be over and done with if the customer had been dealt with better by the restaurant.

Phone calls to the Wild Goose Bar & Grill were not returned Monday.

How would you react if you found a chicken head in your box of wings? And what would you expect by way of compensation?

How could the restaurant have handled this issue better?

And does anyone else think there's something kinda awesome about getting a surprise chicken head in with your wings? I mean, obviously the cooks just dump huge batches of chicken bits in the deep fryer without looking (which doesn't make this a particularly great restaurant), but that aside - it's a chicken head! I'd want to pick it up and make it start talking to people...

 

[The Mystery Machine]

Eh, would not bother me.

Now if they were deep fried mice, OK, now I am grossed out.

 

[LuvLDM]

I think it's kinda funny.

 

[Darsa]

Oh, I couldn't help but laugh...



Especially at the image I got of her opening the bucket of chicken, and seeing that chicken head staring accusingly up at her from a pile of wings...

Oh, here we go again...

(She sat and ate a pound of wings? That sounds like a LOT of chicken... is it?)

 

[Mermaid02]

I would be totally grossed out- but I think reimbursement for the wings was sufficient.

 

[Jennasis]

And NOBODY at the resaturant noticed it while cooking the dang thing?

I'd be grossed out too, and expect my meal to be refunded completely (including the one I'd eaten earlier) and maybe throw in a gift card if I ever intended to come back to the place.

 

[Hannathy]

Personally I would like to know how the eyes which are totally liquid survived being processed, deep frozen, breaded and deep fried and were still able to be staring up at her when she opened the box. Notice how she threw away the wings that where with it and only brought the head? wouldn't you just close it up and bring the whole thing back? and what time was it? why did she wait till the next day? Bars are open till 2 and then people are cleaning up for a bit. Sounds very suspicious to me.

I think she was compensated, now if the bar had wanted to be generous just to keep goodwill they could have given her a certificate for some free meals or whatever but they don't owe her anything.

 

[NHdisneylover]

I think they manager messed up in telling her to contact the distributor. That is just odd to me.
I think he should have simply apologized, refunded her money on the wings and maybe thrown in a gift card (10-20 dollars) as a good will gesture, thanked her for bringing it to his attention so that HE could contact his supplier and left it at that.

 

[Mickey'snewestfan]

Hmmmmm,

Maybe it's just me, but when someone makes a mistake and then they say "Oh, no, we didn't do anything wrong." It irks me. If someone sold me a box of wings and there was a chicken head in it, I'd expect them to say "OMG you're right, that's disgusting! Here's your money back and a coupon so you can come back and have a hamburger on us another time, we'll talk to our supplier and find out what happened so that it doesn't happen again." If they did that I might say "Thanks, that's all that they wanted", or I might say "I'd be interested to know how you solve this problem, please have your supplier call me" but that would be the extent of that.

But if the restaurant said "Well, we'll give you your money back, but it's not our fault." when clearly they cooked the "wings" and should have been looking at them, and then the supplier said "You ordered chicken parts, you got chicken parts, you have no right to complain". I'd probably get pretty annoyed and want them, at a bare minimum to acknowledge publicly that when one orders wings, that's the part one should expect and that, while it might not be illegal to give me a head instead it's also not OK.

Would I want payment? Probably not, but I would certainly be annoyed as heck.

 

[I Am What I Am]

I'd have packed up the wings with the head, taken them back to the restaurant and showed them. Then thrown them out and never have eaten there again.

 

[kamik86]

If this actually happened to me I would expect quite a bit of compensation...

Why because how negligent are your workers if no ones notices a chicken head while:
1)Taking items out of box or bag or whatever to cook.
2) Cooking items
3) Taking items out cooking unit to put wherever they sit and wait (I'm assuming this is a KFC type place but in a resteraunt that cooks to order this may be skipped... then again the small volume makes not noticing at 1,2, or 4 worse.)
4) Putting the chicken in the box

I would have to wonder if the place is up to health codes etc... if you don't notice a chicken head in the food your working in would you notice rat droppings in the corner from the rats that run around the resteraunt at night?

 

[pandaroo]

I would have laughed and continued on with my life.

Giving her the money back was all that was needed. She just wants money and so far no more is coming.

 

[SAHDad]

If this actually happened to me I would expect quite a bit of compensation...

Why because how negligent are your workers if no ones notices a chicken head while:
1)Taking items out of box or bag or whatever to cook.
2) Cooking items
3) Taking items out cooking unit to put wherever they sit and wait (I'm assuming this is a KFC type place but in a resteraunt that cooks to order this may be skipped... then again the small volume makes not noticing at 1,2, or 4 worse.)
4) Putting the chicken in the box

I would have to wonder if the place is up to health codes etc... if you don't notice a chicken head in the food your working in would you notice rat droppings in the corner from the rats that run around the resteraunt at night?

If they actually bread the chicken wings themselves, then they should have caught it, and I would expect some significant compensation. If, however, they are like KFC, Hardees, McDonalds, etc, then the wings (or other assorted chicken-based processed nugget foods) arrive pre-breaded, frozen, and in bags that weigh five or ten pounds.

As someone who has worked in a certain, eouthern-based, chicken based restaurant, I can assure you that we did not look at every single wing we cooked. You dump a bunch into the basket (easy to miss a breaded head in that mess), and then lower the basket into the fryer. Fry oil isn't the clearest thing in the world (not for long, anyway), and you would only see the pieces on top. When the timer beeps, you pull the basket out, gently shake it a couple times (to remove some of the excess oil), and they get dumped under a warming lamp. During rush, you can have people trying to grab wings (or nuggets, etc) out of the basket as you are trying to get it to the lamp - or mobbing it as soon as they're out. The metal tongs hide a great deal of detail, too - so you could snap down on the head, and not be able to see it clearly due to the tongs. And, to be honest, once you have it in the carboard box, you don't look at it again - you're too busy counting out the correct number of wings, or closing the box and getting the rest of the order.

I could see it happening as an honest mistake. Doesn't mean I wouldn't be asking for a refund and a couple extra orders of wings though.

 

[Heidict]

I would of been a little grossed out and then would have gotten over it and would have laughed my butt off telling the story to everyone.

As for the restaurant, they should have refund her money (which they dyd) and as an offer of good will given her a gift card. After all, most people just want free stuff, then they will walk away happy or at least satisfied.

It also makes me wonder about the quality control if the fryer cook didn't even notice a chicken head in amongst the wings. What else are they missing back there?

 

[Hannathy]

This was a bar not a fine restaurant! They are making hundreds of wings quickly, probably only 1 cook. They would dump them from the bag into the fryer and then into a basket or box they arem't inspecting each one. You don't have time to look at each wing when you are doing short order in a busy bar.

 

[luvmy3]

I would have boxed it up and returned everything and expected a full refund. If the supplier needed to be contacted I would expect the restaurant to do that themselves, not tell me to do it. Then I would walk out of the store and get myself a big *** burger from somewhere else. I wouldn't be able to eat another chicken wing ever again because I would be scarred for life. After I gained so much weight and developed heart problems from eating burgers instead of chicken wings from then on, I would sue the restaurant and the supplier for millions of dollars because somebody has to be responsible and I know it wasn't me because I didn't order a chicken head!

 

[punkin]

I think they manager messed up in telling her to contact the distributor. That is just odd to me.
I think he should have simply apologized, refunded her money on the wings and maybe thrown in a gift card (10-20 dollars) as a good will gesture, thanked her for bringing it to his attention so that HE could contact his supplier and left it at that.

Hmmmmm,

Maybe it's just me, but when someone makes a mistake and then they say "Oh, no, we didn't do anything wrong." It irks me.

***

Would I want payment? Probably not, but I would certainly be annoyed as heck.

These two quotes pretty much sum it up for me.

 

[Guy Incognito]

I'd be happy I had evidence that they were using real chicken. (and maybe see if there was any good meat on the head to pick off and eat)

 

[sbell111]

I'd have kicked the woman out of my restaurant and told her to never come back. After all, the odds are that she is lying about the entire thing and trying to shake down the restaurant.

 

[worm761]

Hmmmmm,

Maybe it's just me, but when someone makes a mistake and then they say "Oh, no, we didn't do anything wrong." It irks me. If someone sold me a box of wings and there was a chicken head in it, I'd expect them to say "OMG you're right, that's disgusting! Here's your money back and a coupon so you can come back and have a hamburger on us another time, we'll talk to our supplier and find out what happened so that it doesn't happen again." If they did that I might say "Thanks, that's all that they wanted", or I might say "I'd be interested to know how you solve this problem, please have your supplier call me" but that would be the extent of that.

But if the restaurant said "Well, we'll give you your money back, but it's not our fault." when clearly they cooked the "wings" and should have been looking at them, and then the supplier said "You ordered chicken parts, you got chicken parts, you have no right to complain". I'd probably get pretty annoyed and want them, at a bare minimum to acknowledge publicly that when one orders wings, that's the part one should expect and that, while it might not be illegal to give me a head instead it's also not OK.

Would I want payment? Probably not, but I would certainly be annoyed as heck.

I am going to guess that it was an inexperienced manager. The first thing they teach is you is never admit fault. You can apologize without actually admitting fault and that is what you should do. Once you admit fault, you open yourself up to lawsuits. And this is a sue happy world we live in. The manager could have answered better than call the distributor but like I said, he was probable inexperienced. Bet he never does that again though.