An expensive mistake led to free pizza for some Texas firefighters — and an international giving campaign.
According to CTV, Lesser Slave Lake Regional Fire Service in Alberta, Canada was planning on hosting a talk about PTSD with area first responders and hoped to provide pizza for attendees. So Lesser Slake Lake firefighter Jordan Lampertz looked up the number to what he thought was one of his favorite pizza joints — Alimo's Pizza.
Lampertz told CTV that he felt a little strange giving his credit card number since he couldn't remember Alimo's asking for a credit card before.
But he didn't think much of it until he got a call from a number from Texas. After answering and confirming that he would pick the pizzas up at 4:30, he asked his fire chief why Alimo's has a Texas number.
After a quick Google search, Lampertz realized that he had called Alamo Pizza, not Alimo's.
Frank Nunez owns Alamo Pizza in San Antonio, Texas. He said he didn't think twice about taking an order from a Canadian order since his restaurant is near an airport. He was, however, concerned that he would be stuck with 18 unsold pizzas that he had already made.
Luckily, Lampertz agreed to pay for the pizzas anyway, and Nunez made sure to apply a first responder discount. But who was going to eat 18 pizzas?
"Firefighters there are no different than us. If someone's throwing pizza in your face, we're going to eat it, we're going to take advantage of it," Lesser Slave Lake Regional Fire Chief Alex Pavcek told KABB-TV.
So, the Lesser Slave firefighters decided to send the pies to local San Antonio firefighters. The pizzas were split between stations No. 16 and No. 25.
The San Antonio firefighters sent pictures of their pizza party back to Canada, sparking a friendship between the two departments.
The mixup also inspired a new giving campaign for Alimo's pizza in Canada. Two customers approached the restaurant asking if they could "pay it forward with pizza" to someone in need. Using the hashtag #RandomActsOfPizza, the restaurant has collected hundreds of dollars worth of pizza that it can now give to people in need.
Alex Hider is a writer for the E.W. Scripps National Desk. Follow him on Twitter @alexhider.
