'I lost my appetite': Cheeseburger served with waiver at Toronto restaurant

After reading the article, I'm on the hotel's side.
If someone asks for meat to be prepared in a way that Health Canada says is below the optimal temperature to kill pathogens, then the customer is putting themselves at risk and should bare any liability.
If someone asked for unpasteurized milk, raw eggs, or live seafood, I'd expect them to get the same waiver.
Seems quite sensible.
- I would be as well were it not for one small detail, and it's that the waiver was presented after they started eating.
  
  No, still on the restaurants side. Like yes, it was a mistake and they should have presented it earlier, but asking for a burger to be done medium isn't a common thing here in Canada. They might not have thought about the waiver until then.
  Edit: my point here is that this article is presenting the waiver itself as some kind of wrongdoing or indictment about the restaurant's quality/safety. To me, this seems wrongheaded and the timing of the waiver being brought out seems more like "whoops we forgor" thing than a "desperately covering our ass" thing -- since again, medium burgers aren't really a thing here.
  I'm not going to fault the hotel for trying their best to please customer requests and the customer being Pikachu shock faced when he's asked to not sue the restaurant for accommodating his McDeath Burger extra value meal.
  
  That was a mistake, I'm sure. Puts the hotel at a greater liability (i.e. the customer refuses to sign), but someone eating undercooked meat would already know the risks, so this wouldn't stop them from eating it.
  
  Who eats that fast. Like something doesn’t add up. They brought the food but came back afterwards.
- I feel bad for y'all food standards
- He ordered the burger MEDIUM. In no world should that require a waiver.
  
  Not all ground beef is freshly ground by the restaurant.
  
  I don't know man, I've always been thought ground beef always needs to be cooked well.

Title feels a bit click-baity, but truly I think the waiver is reasonable. If you want food prepared outside our food safety standards and laws, you should have to waive the right to sue if you get yourself sick and die. Whether it will actually hold in court is contestable.
- Or the restaurant could say "no we dont do this"
  
  Absolutely. One could argue that the restaurant went out of its way to provide a customer food request, but many restaurants refuse to cook ground beef at anything below well-done.
  Personally, as a Canadian, I would never eat anything less than that for a hamburger, but I cook my steaks near blue at home.
- I'm an American living in Canada and I think the law and mentality around it are silly.
  That said, you're right. Those are the codified rules, and because they are codified, the hotel has taken the necessary steps to protect themselves, while going out of their way to provide this to their customer. They could have just told them no, just like every other establishment does.
  
  Yeah so we've got this thing in Canada called public healthcare and we ended up paying for people getting e.coli and mad cow disease because they decided they knew better, so no these regulations aren't silly.

Here in BC, anything but well done burgers are illegal in restaurants. We have steak tartar, but you need to cut the exterior layer of meat away and grind it right before serving. You might get away with doing the same for burgers, but no one does it that I know of.
- I've heard of a restaurant in North van that does it, I can't recall its name though.
  
  At one point Vera's burgers would because they sourced their own beef, but im not sure if that survived them expanding 10+years ago. They did start north shore so maybe it was Vera's

I'm a guy who likes a medium-rare burger and loves mett and I know the risks involved since it's ground meat with tons of surface area and I don't blame the hotel one bit and would have signed the waiver unlike this prima Donna.

I worked at Outback Steakhouse (outside the US) and we were never allowed to serve burgers that weren't well done. I've had to explain many times that it is due to the risk of illness from uncooked/processed meat and people still choose to be upset.
- I thought the science says a steak can safely be rare, but not hamburger? Still a weird thing to get upset about. Although I've been to dinner with people I thought were reasonable only for them to turn into fuckheads with waiters. I think some people just get really dickish when they are customers. Fuck em.
  
  Its any ground meat. Bacteria cant penetrate a steak to contaminate it, so as long as the outside is cooked enough its safe. When you grind up meat to expose all of the meat to outside conditions, plus any bacteria left on the grinders themselves, so it has to be fully cooked.

Why has this been making some of the "news" recently?
Some corporation wanted to cover it's ass in the same my my work cafeteria warns about raw eggs when they serve Tiramisu.
I had to sign a waiver to try some hot sauce that was 2.5M+ on the Scoville scale.
- None of these waivers hold up in court here in Canada, like, at all.
  The hot sauce ones are generally just trying to make things feel "more extreme", trying to add theatrics to the experience.
  
  It wouldn't even hold up in this case: the waiver holds Hilton not liable when the guest eats food not prepared by the restaurant, when the guest is clearly eating food prepared by the restaurant.
  
  It probably does make some people restrain themselves from hurting themselves. It has a use.

Oh fuck off, your stupid and unsafe eating habits are your own fucked up problems, the hotel has nothing to do with this. Of course it's a Redditor too, fucking weirdos, holy hell

Waiver should have been brought up when he requested the burger undercooked, but otherwise I see no issue.

Dumb American disgusted by his own stupidity
- He’s stupid because he ordered a burger how he likes it (and probably normally orders it), starts eating it, then they ask him to sign a waiver after he’s taken a few bites?
  Sorry friend, I’m not sure he’s the stupid one here. If the waiter had told him that he needs to sign a waiver before they put the order in, that’s one thing. Doing it after they cooked it to order and he started eating is where the real stupidity occurs.
  
  Dude is incredibly stupid, because he's been ordering under-cooked burgers without any conception of what he's requesting for "Bob"-know-how-long.
  He might like medium-cooked burgers, but he has no idea what that even means. The food at the hotel isn't less-safe than other places. They just didn't assume he read the fine-print at the bottom of the menu and were the first to inform him that it's not safe.
  Yeah, they delivered the waiver at the wrong time, but dude should've already known what he was ordering wasn't safe. I order over-easy, soft-boiled, and sometimes sunny-side-up eggs. I know the risks, and I accept them.
  Unless you put an a ton of effort into it, ground beef is only safe well-done. To get safe under-cooked ground beef, you need to discuss your intentions with your butcher and grind the beef yourself. Even with grinding a single, quality cut of beef, you're still gambling.
  Also, fuck you, I'm not your friend guy, here's a rocket ship ().():::::::::::::::::D~~~~~~~
  
  They just want an excuse to spread hate.
- What makes him stupid? Cooking a burger to medium is extremely common.
- Reit007 said the server explained that because the kitchen at the Hilton Toronto Airport Hotel & Suites always cooks their burgers well-done, they should sign the waiver first.
  The disgusting part of this story is a corporate mandate on well-done burgers.
  
  You can have ground beef below well done, but it has to be fresh ground in clean equipment. Most restaurants that don't specialize in burgers/beef aren't fresh grinding mean on order. If you eat medium at a place that doesn't offer it you're responsible for your own decisions.
  
  you can have undercooked beef because bacteria can’t penetrate that far below the surface (opposed to chicken), if it is ground then that safety net isn’t there
  
  Its 160°F in center mandate, or you would lose your food service license. Why would a hotel risk that for one customer that wants it cooked below standards
  
  It's not a corporate mandate, it's a provincial government mandate that exists in the whole of Canada as far as I know (food safety for restaurants being under provincial jurisdiction) and for good reasons, the risks associated with undercooked ground beef aren't worth it to please the small % of clients who would want it.
  You want your patties medium? Buy a whole piece of meat, remove the outer layer, ground it and cook it, don't expect restaurants to do that for you.
  
  Nah, the disgusting part is the consequences of factory farming and humanity's domination of the planet and desire for meat.
  Well-done burgers are the band-aid for the deeper problems.

In Germany they sell ground beef that is save to eat raw. So either get save meat or, if your ground beef is not safe, bring this up directly when someone orders a medium or rare burger and not after the person already started eating.
- Right. If my only choice is well done, I’m getting something else. Don’t bring me a waiver after I’ve started eating it.
- Also raw ground pork that it safe for raw consumption. I love me some thüringer mett.
  
  How the hell do they manage that? Freezing like sushi or irradiation like fruit?
- Eww, we eat raw pork, not beef.
  
  Ohh so much better and different.

The only thing is why not get the waiver with the appetizer, before it's served or together? That's the negligence on the Hilton Restaurant's part and really doesn't have meaning if this user did happen to get E.Coli. Ordering medium ground beef at a non-specialty venue is kind of stupid to begin with.
- The waiver should have been produced after ordering and well before any food arrives.
  
  That's probably the intention but it's so rare (haha) to order undercooked patties in Canada that they might not even have known a waiver was necessary.

Technically you can cook a hamburger to medium and have it be safe to eat, but I really don't see most restaurants doing sous vide for hamburgers.

First, the waiver should have been provided prior to serving the meal.
Second, and off topic, Toronto Pearson area seems fraught with problems. From second-hand experience of a family member, they got delayed by 11 hours after the 3 hour layover, simply because the airport apparently doesn’t know what electric surge protection is (that was their excuse, that a surge occurred in the airport grounding their plane).
Last, anyone who wants less-than-well-done meat should expect a semblance of risk and expect the restaurant will want to legally protect themselves. But it’s pretty shitty to get the waiver after being served.
So as a throwback to the AITA subreddit…ESH.

Yeah, this isn't like the hotel thinks its food is unsafe to eat, this is just acknowledging that the customer wanted their beef cooked below safe standards.
Isn't this usually covered by a disclaimer on the menu though?

As a consumer, I would see the presence of such a waiver as a prompt to think about what necessitated this in the first place. Perhaps this kitchen isn't as clean as it could be, and something happened to prompt this level of (legal) caution. Yeah, it could have been an overzealous patron looking for a payday, but maybe someone had a legit case?
- Nah it’s a cultural thing. Burgers done to not well done is common in the US. It definitely isn’t in Canada. They’re almost always well done.
  First time in the U.S. being asked how I like my burger was actually confusing to me.
  
  It's a regulations thing and it changed in the last 30 years (after a bunch of e.coli or mad cow disease cases happened I think)
  
  You will typically find a disclaimer on the menus about undercooked food.
  
  look up a Pittsburgh style burger fuckin nasty
- They asked for meat to be cooked at a lower temp than Health Canada recommends. It makes sense that you need to sign stuff if you tell the kitchen to do something that isn't recommended.
- what necessitated this in the first place
  Laws.

Would be nice if they did this for all meat purchased. Except the waiver should indicate the damage being caused to the climate

you want people to be able to sue over everything, this is the result.
id have signed, cuz i both enjoy meat and not suin' people for nonsense i caused.
e: i have in the past ordered 'as rare as you can legally make it'. most of the time i get stupid looks and they bring it rare, but sometimes they just nod and bring me a brick
- you want people to be able to sue over everything, this is the result.
  Two words : fusioned labias. That's what the too hot coffee from Mc Donald caused to the victim who sued them.
  
  If you actually read about the hot coffee lawsuit you would know there is a lot more to it than just hot coffee.
- RTFA
  they had already started eating when the server handed them a waiver.
  Not to mention, the eater is dumb if they get a hamburger that's less than well done. Ground beef has much more surface area for pathogens to creep into. So unless you watched them cut up and grind the meat, after watching them properly sterilize their equipment, order that burger well done.
  
  I suggest you do too.
  The whiny guy ordered the burger to be medium done. He got it the way he wanted.
  He is literally eating what he ordered, and was shocked when the restaurant tried to cover their ass for letting him order an undercooked burger.
  
  i absolutely read the article.
  i read an article about a crybaby who ordered a burger rare, which everyone knows is outside the scope of safety fucking everywhere, and then whined when presented with having to take responsibility for the choice he was already eating.
  or are we to believe this is his first experience ordering rare??