'Mommy there's ketchup': Burger King in Getzville briefly closed after blood found on takeout order (2024)

Fast-food kids’ meals usually come with a surprise inside.

Tiffany Floyd wasn’t expecting the one she got.

Burger King temporarily closed one of its restaurants in Getzville after the Sanborn mother reported finding blood on her 4-year-old daughter’s takeout order late last week.

Floyd posted about the disturbing discovery on social media Friday in messages that quickly went viral, including 7.1 million views for one TikTok video alone.

“I did not expect it to blow up like this,” Floyd, 29, said in one of many interviews she has conducted this week.

The company later confirmed the incident at its location at 2515 Millersport Highway, at Campbell Boulevard, and said it happened after an employee injured his finger.

She said in an interview that her daughter, Matayla, had wanted a children’s meal, so they ordered through the restaurant’s drive-thru.

“i usually take her food out for her but today i just gave her the bag than i hear ‘mommy there’s ketchup and i didn’t want ketchup,’” she wrote. “so i take it back to see if they messed up our order and its BLOOD!!! There’s blood all over her food and inside the bag.”

Floyd on Tuesday said her daughter had taken one bite of her hamburger and had eaten a couple of French fries. There was a red liquid all over her daughter’s food and wrappers and, though not to the same degree, on her own order. Floyd said she hadn’t consumed any of her meal.

Floyd said she pulled over her vehicle and called the restaurant, where the manager told her a worker had cut his hand.

He offered to refund the cost of her meal, Floyd recalled. “I told him, ‘No thank you,’ “ she said.

She said she was more concerned about whether she would have to take her daughter to the hospital for blood work as a safety precaution.

“It’s so scary,” she recalled.

Floyd said she called the Niagara County Health Department, where an employee told her all they could do is take a report, and she contacted her daughter’s pediatrician. She said she was trying not to spiral emotionally with her daughter and her newborn in the car with her as she waited for return phone calls.

“I AM LIVID!!!!” she concluded in her Facebook post that has been shared 11,000 times.

Floyd said she made the posts and video because she wanted to warn other customers about what had happened, particularly those who had ordered from the restaurant before or after her.

“It’s a busy location,” she said.

In a follow-up video posted on TikTok, which received 958,000 likes and 73,000 shares, she showed the camera spots of blood on the packaging and wrappers for her daughter’s burger, fries and toy.

Floyd on Monday began speaking to local and national news outlets, including People magazine and the New York Post.

“We were deeply upset and concerned to learn of this incident,” a Burger King spokesperson said in a statement. “We have been in contact with the guest and are working with her to resolve this incident.”

The company statement said the employee, upon noticing his injury, “immediately stepped away.”

Burger King said it closed the restaurant last weekend for worker retraining and to allow an outside company “to complete a deep cleaning.”

All employees were paid for any lost shifts during the shutdown and the restaurant reopened on Monday, the company said.

A spokesperson on Tuesday said the Erie County Health Department did not receive a direct complaint from a member of the public, but followed up with the restaurant after seeing initial news reports.

“A sanitarian inspected the facility on Monday 7/29,” spokesperson Kara Kane said in an email. “No critical or non-critical violations were found at the time of inspection.”

Floyd said the incident remains troubling to her and her family, and she has cried while tucking her children in at night.

“I’m obviously trying to stay strong for my daughter, because that’s what’s needed right now,” she said. “But, emotionally, I am not doing OK.”

She said she hasn’t decided whether to sue Burger King, but is talking to lawyers.

“My daughter’s health is my main priority,” Floyd said. She said she must wait a month before her daughter can be screened for blood-borne diseases.

Floyd said her family is taking a temporary break from fast-food meals and, even though the Getzville restaurant is the closest Burger King to her home, it’s off their dining list.

“We no longer will go there,” she said.