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Food updates: Burnt pizza and well-deserved respite

Rotterdam Square Mall security recently had to check out smoke and the smell of something burning that was wafting throughout much of the complex.

They discovered the staff at Sbarro's Pizza closed shop for the night, not realizing three pies remained in an oven. Cremated dough produced an acrid stench forcing maintenance workers to open mall exterior doors on a frigid night to dissipate the odor.

Fortunately, only a few stores with longer holiday hours were still open, so just a minimum of shoppers had to put up with the smell and temperature drop. "I thought somebody ordered a well-done pizza," one bystander wisecracked.