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Top 10 Restaurants Where You Have To Sign A Waiver To Eat
Move over ordinary hot dog eating contests and place aside your admiration of steak-eating champions; now there are restaurants serving food so dangerous that you have to sign a waiver to eat there! From ghost pepper ice cream to habañero-loaded pizzas, check out these restaurants that will burn your insides! Here are 10 Restaurants Where You Have To Sign A Waiver To Eat.
10. The Ice Cream Store
At first glance, The Ice Cream Store in Delaware looks like a regular ice cream shop with several delicious ice cream flavors on offer. But look closely and read through the flavors listed on the menu and you’ll notice cheeky ice cream flavor names. And wedged in between innocent-looking flavors like African Vanilla, Browny Butter Oreo, Piña Colada, and the likes of the insane Devil’s Breath Carolina Reaper Pepper Ice Cream and the Ghost Pepper Ice Cream. Both ice cream flavors require you to sign a waiver that absolves the shop and its management from any liability arising out of the consumption of these ice cream flavors. Given that the shop’s website states in bold letters that ‘ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE at The Ice Cream Store!’, we’re not surprised by these two mind-boggling ice cream flavors. The Ghost Pepper Ice Cream flavor was reportedly the first to be introduced and garnered quite a lot of media attention at the time because it required you to sign a waiver not just to buy it, but to sample it as well. This ice cream flavor builds on the much-loved vanilla ice cream to which their special ‘You Can’t Handle This Hot Sauce’, generous helpings of Da’ Bomb Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce, Mad Dog 357 Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce, a fresh Ghost Pepper mixture, Heartbreaking Dawns 1841 Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce, and a dash of cinnamon are added. A ribbon of strawberry sauce completes this ice cream. For the uninitiated, the heat of any pepper is measured in Scoville units with a traditional Tabasco sauce generally in the 2500 to 5000 range. A ghost pepper registers 1 million Scoville units of heat! And introduced just a while back by The Ice Cream Store, the Devil’s Breath Carolina Reaper Pepper Ice Cream is the newest bad boy in town! Similar to the Ghost Pepper Ice Cream, it is made up of a bright red colored vanilla ice cream that is blended with their signature Ed’s Carolina Reaper Pepper Mash and cinnamon with a strawberry ribbon to finish it off.
9. Allan’s Authentic Mexican Restaurant
Located in Portland, Oregon, Allan’s Authentic Mexican Restaurant is known to serve food with authentic flavors & seasonings of Chihuahua, Mexico. While the restaurant prides itself on serving traditional cuisine with a modern twist, what we’re most fascinated by is its Diablo Burrito Challenge. Literally translating to a ‘Devil Burrito’ Challenge, this item is guaranteed to create hell in your insides. Often referred to as the spiciest burrito on Earth, the Diablo Burrito consists of a tortilla wrap stuffed with a medley of the hottest commercially available peppers, beans, rice, and New York strip steak, all doused in their homemade salsa sauce and topped with devilish Serrano pepper horns. In all its glory, the burrito indeed looks like the devil incarnate! And the Diablo Burrito Challenge is best described by the restaurant as ‘a delicious, extremely hot challenge which takes you on a scuba dive into a volcano, after walking on hot coals the day after you went camping in a forest fire.’ Yowza! And there is a specific method to eating the burrito. You have to literally take the devil by the horns and start by eating the Serrano pepper horns and then moving onto the burrito itself. But before you even do that, there are other conditions to be met. You have to sign an extensive waiver that warns the participants of the risks of consuming the burrito and releases the restaurant of all responsibility. You get ten minutes to polish off the burrito and are only allowed to drink water during the challenge, no dairy products are permitted. The waiver also cheekily states that should you feel the wrath of the burrito and hurl out the contents, you have to clean up after yourself! If you are successful in beating the current reigning champions, you will win a handblown glass trophy, a t-shirt and free burritos for up to one year! But if unsuccessful, you will still be among the brave few who tried.
8. Munchies 4:20 Café
For those living in or passing through Sarasota, California, a visit to the popular Munchies 4:20 Café is highly recommended. With a tag line that reads ‘Cause yo mama don’t cook past midnight’, this late-night food joint offers a wide array of creative sandwiches, burgers, sides and many other delectable bites that will satisfy all your nocturnal cravings. But that’s not why Munchies is on this list. It is popular for being the home of the fiery ‘Fire In Your Hole Wings’. With a cheeky name like that, it is bound to attract attention. And it did indeed! The restaurant was featured on The Travel Channel’s Man V. Food show where host Adam Richman attempted to eat these dangerously hot wings but unfortunately failed to complete the task. Many others have tried too, but only few have been successful. The Fire In Your Hole Wings recipe seems to be a top-secret as its ingredients do not seem to be readily available on the restaurant menu. But there is definitely some sort of spicy ingredient in the recipe, probably a really hot pepper, that makes your tongue, throat, stomach and, ahem, something else down there burn too. And what gives away the dangerous heat levels of these wings is the waiver that you are required to sign before consuming them and the fact that the wings are available for dine-in only. The restaurant menu states that the dine-in bit is for the customer’s own safety. With such statements, one can only wonder where these wings register on the Scoville scale, but we’re sure they’re pretty high up. The wings are only available on certain days, served to adult customers only and not available after 10pm. Once you sign the waiver, you are given 20 minutes to eat 10 Fire In Your Hole Wings. If you succeed, you get a free T-shirt, but should you fail, you get featured on their ‘Wall of Shame’. For lesser mortals, they serve mild, buffalo and Teriyaki wings too.
7. Avellino’s Decatur
A Georgia establishment, Avellino’s Decatur, is a family-friendly Italian restaurant that brings the robust flavors of Italy straight to the tables of Georgia. But their freshly-made food is not why they’re famous. The Decatur location of Avellino’s attained international fame due to their incredible Il Diavolo Pizza. The restaurant was also part of the Food Network 2012 reality series ‘Heat Seekers.’ What makes the Il Diavolo Pizza so special? For starters, you are required to sign a waiver before ordering it. Next, the pizza seems to be available only in one size – small. And lastly, the pizza’s ingredients will blow your mind (most likely burn your tongue too); the pizza sauce is sprinkled with ‘Evil Dust’, a concoction made from dehydrated habañero, jalapeño and ghost pepper flakes, mixed with pizza sauce to which toppings of mozzarella cheese and fresh hot peppers are added. The Il Diavolo Pizza is certainly for the brave hearts only.
6. Brick Lane Curry
From the famed curry shops of Brick Lane in London comes the popular Brick Lane Curry restaurant located in New York City. Serving up a delectable mishmash of British-Indian cuisine, this restaurant is well-known for its dynamite Phaal curry. It is described by the restaurant itself as ‘an excruciatingly hot curry, more pain and sweat than flavor.’ It is so hot that chefs are reportedly required to wear gas masks when preparing the curry. Now that’s some serious level of hotness. Plus, customers ordering the Phaal curry are required to state a verbal disclaimer not holding the restaurant liable for any physical or emotional damage after eating the curry. The exact ingredients of the curry are not known but some reports say that Bhut Naga Jolokia chilli is used in the cooking process. And your reward for finishing the curry? A bottle of beer on the house, a certificate, and above all, eternal glory in the P’hall of Fame.
5. Jake Melnick’s Corner Tap
Employing the services of one of the hottest peppers in the world is the XXX Wings dish at Jack Melnick’s Corner Tap restaurant in Chicago. These insanely hot wings have been available at the restaurant since the early 2000s and have won many awards too. To make the XXX Wings sauce, the restaurant uses hickory-smoked habañero that gives the wings a smoky-fruity flavor. Then, they amp it up by mixing dried ghost pepper with orange juice to give it a sweet and hot taste. But the pepper that is the ultimate kicker in the sauce is the Trinidad Scorpion pepper, which is melt-your-face-off hot, and is believed to have surpassed the ghost pepper on the Scoville scale. All these peppers come together to make one of the hottest wing sauces on the planet. But before you can chow down on these wings, you need to sign a waiver. Once done, the staff will bring you a fireman’s helmet, a bell and your plate of wings. One bite of the XXX Wings and your mouth is sure to scream for respite. Luckily, respite is at hand. All you have to do is ring the bell and the staff will bring you ‘cooling plates’. Cooling plates consist of milk, ice cream, bread and slices of orange, all of which help in somehow reducing the heat. If you succeed in finishing your plate of XXX Wings, you get your picture on Jake’s Wall of Flame.
4. Bushido Japanese Restaurant
Located in Charleston, South Carolina, Bushido Japanese Restaurant holds a unique challenge that is only for the brave. Their Spicy Tuna Hand Roll Challenge Redux (Seppuku Challenge in Japanese) is a renowned challenge in the hot and spicy food world and was even featured on the TV show Man vs. Food. In order to undertake the challenge, you have to sign a Waiver and Release form. You are given one hour to eat 10 spicy tuna rolls that have an increasing order of heat from 1 to 10, and you must eat the rolls in that same order. To make matters worse, participants are not allowed any form of respite during the challenge; no milk, ice cream, avocados, etc. are allowed. Clearly, this challenge is not for everyone. Should you feel the wrath of the challenge, you are required to use the restroom and clean up after yourself! And the reward for going through the Seppuku Challenge is a coveted Bushido headband, your picture on the Wall of Legends, and complimentary Chef’s Choice appetizer whenever you visit the restaurant wearing your headband.
3. Flying Pie
With multiple locations in Boise, Idaho, Flying Pie restaurant is a popular establishment in the state. Though the restaurant offers scrumptious pizzas throughout the year, what they are most famous for are their hot Habañero Pizzas that are served during the habañero season in August. Why August? Well, August is when the habañeros are at their best, most flavorful and at the peak of their hotness. The habañeros are so hot that the restaurant uses separate kitchen utensils while preparing the Habañero Pizzas so that no small bit of the potent pepper accidentally ends un in regular pizzas. Flying Pie offers Habañero Pizza in four styles – Single, Double, Triple and Quad (with Ghost Pepper sauce). While the pizzas are undoubtedly very hot, they pack a lot of flavor too. The restaurant believes that their habañero peppers are much hotter than the regular ones and are too potent for even those people who regularly eat spicy food. Thus, anybody ordering a Habañero Pizza is forewarned about its intensity and requested to finish eating the pizza on the restaurant premises so that the staff can ‘ensure your safe return to life’ if the heat is too much for you. But if you choose to consume the Habañero Pizza outside the restaurant, like take-away, leftovers or delivery, you are required to sign a release waiver.
2. Broken Barrel Tavern
As a Palm Bay, Florida establishment, Broken Barrel Tavern is a massive 7300 square foot sports bar specializing in beers. But what you need to try at the restaurant is their Ghost Wing Challenge. Many have attempted it, some have partially completed it and only a legendary few have successfully conquered this beast of a challenge. The reward is your picture on the restaurant’s Wall of Fame, a free drink of your choice, a t-shirt and above all, eternal bragging rights. For all this glory, the first step is to sign a waiver that essentially states the following; in this 20 minutes long challenge, you get 12 minutes to eat 12 Ghost Wings and the next 8 minutes are called ‘burn time’. This is where the challenge gets brutal – during the burn time, contestants have no access to anything that can aid in decreasing the heat: no drinks, dipping sauce, napkins, gloves, bathroom breaks, and no whining either. If you regurgitate the food, you will be disqualified. That’s harsh! Now that we’re convinced about the brutality of the Ghost Wings, let’s take a look at what makes them so unbearably hot. The wings are apparently coated with a seasoning mix made up of habañero and Ghost Pepper (one of the hottest peppers on the planet) extracts, along with other hot and spicy seasonings.
1. Chunky’s Burger
Chunky’s Burger is a family-friendly restaurant that serves tasty sandwiches, burgers, starters, and sides. While that description is quite innocent-looking, Chunky’s Burger hides an extremely wicked secret – the 4 Horsemen Burger Challenge. Located in San Antonio, Texas, the 4 Horsemen Burger at Chunky’s Burger was once declared the ‘Hottest Burger on the Planet’ by the TV show, Man vs. Food. Containing dangerously hot peppers like the Ghost Pepper, Serrano, jalapeño and habañero pepper sauce, this pizza is ‘not for the faint of the heart’, as the restaurant’s website states. And before you even attempt to order the burger, you have to sign a liability waiver. The rules are simple – you have 25 minutes to eat the burger and a 5 minute waiting period. No spitting, sharing or restroom breaks are allowed, and a chuck bucket is provided to anybody who feels sick. The brave soul who completes the challenges gets their picture on the restaurant’s Wall of Flame.