Some Valley employees dealing with heat inside and out

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- On days where the temperature creeps close to 110 degrees, working inside doesn't seem like a bad place to be. But inside the kitchen of Sam's Pizza Place employees are trapped in eternal heat.

"In this room, there's only one season, it's summer, and trust me it's over 98, 100 degrees every day," said Sam Halmi, Owner, Sam's Pizza.

The ovens operate as such high temperatures they can only be kept open for seconds at a time.

"When you open it and you have your naked eye, you could feel the temperature in your face," said Halmi.

But the hard work in kitchens like Sam's across the Valley does yield reward.

"People don't want to cook it's so hot, they don't even want to turn on their oven or barbeque," said Bobby Salazar, Owner, Bobby Salazar's.

At Bobby Salazar's in the Tower District foot traffic in the summer increases by nearly 20-percent. People flock here for the AC which means cooks have more on their workload.

"They have lots of water, and lots of coolers, if they get really hot, they walk into the walk-in refrigerator," said Salazar.

Cooks say acclimating to these work conditions takes years of practice and endurance.

"This is the way the pizza man works, it's tough, but it's a living," said Halmi.

A challenge they have to endure-- winter or summer.