That’s it: I really didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to take the full Karen approach on this matter. I’ve never publicly put a restaurant on blast before, even if they’ve given me the mud-flaps the next day. Nor have I ever dreamed of taking up op-ed space to attack a business. But something really has to be said about the despicable business practices of Pinetti’s Pizza Paradise on Wilshire Blvd.
It happened like this. Yesterday evening, as I stepped out of the shower, clad in nothing but a bathrobe and my underclothes, I happened to get a knock at the door. Going downstairs, I saw a mullet-clad and mustachioed young gentleman standing outside, wearing Pinetti’s uniform and holding a greasy pizza box. His name tag said Dominic and he informed me that he was there to give me a pizza with extra sausage.
Sidenote to Pinetti’s. Provide your employees with some proper garb, please and thanks. It was freezing outside and you had him in shorts and a tank-top.
Well, needless to say I hadn’t the slightest intention of accepting said pizza. I hadn’t ordered anything. In fact, I had already set aside some leftover eggplant parmesan for dinner. And the extra sausage? Well, I am on a diet and am a strict vegetarian to boot. I don’t want extra anything. Least of all sausage.
“You don’t understand,” Dominic said, gesturing to the box, “the sausage that’s in here, it’s hot, thick and meaty.”
Yes, I’m sure it was. And that was precisely what I had hoped to avoid. Worse yet, Dominic asked if I had any method by which to pay for my pizza. The pizza I hadn’t even ordered. I could tell that he was going to be a persistent nuisance and so I quickly told him “no” and to please leave. But he persisted. “We can work out a different way for you to pay.”
By this point, I could tell that Pinetti’s clearly doesn’t take no for an answer. Obviously, they’ve created some sort of guerrilla pizza-delivery system to be thrust upon unsuspecting Jane and Joe Public. “I suppose you’d like a tip too, wouldn’t you?” I asked Dominic. To which he replied that he would actually be giving me the tip.
I can’t make sense of it. Reverse-financed, non-ordered pizza. It hardly seems professional to me. Certainly can’t be a good way to make money. So I’m calling out to each of you: Please do not order from Pinetti’s again unless they revise their business practices. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go have my eggplant parmesan. Then, if all goes according to plan, go out and get proper fucked.