Teesside Park branch - abysmal service and ROTTEN FOOD! (Pizza Express)

Member Name: alimacb

Product:	Pizza Express
Date:	14/04/09 (138 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Conveniently situated, does frequent offers

Disadvantages: None existent customer service, serve you rotten food and huff about it when you complain!

I recently visited the Pizza Express branch in Teesside Park with my friend Lou on Bank Holiday Friday for a nice girly meal out.

Where is it?
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The restaurant is situated on the entrance to Teesside Park (a retail and leisure park on the A19 near Stockton), alongside TGI Friday's, Chiquitos' and Frankie and Benny's. There isn't a great deal of parking space around the eateries but surprisingly it didn't seem to be overly busy this night so we parked quite easily.

What is it?
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It is a chain of Italian pizza restaurants that advertise themselves as being 'all about amazing FRESH ingredients and doing as little to them as possible, just using their natural flavours' This is a quote from their website (hint...keep this quote in mind!).

The first restaurant opened in London in 1965 by the founder Peter Boizot and has grown into a chain that can be found all over the UK.

The menu's are quite varied and appetizing and they have a great selection of wine available. They are doing several promotions like 'buy one get one free' and 'two courses and a glass of wine for £10' which make the visit a little more affordable. You will be quite surprised at the prices for these pizzas as they are quite expensive but as I am of the idea that 'you get what you pay for' and with the emphasis on handmade bases and amazing fresh ingredients I was sold.

The visit - brace yourself this is long
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The restaurant was very modern and clean looking, lots of wood glass and metal which looks very upmarket and emphasises the idea that this isn't just any normal pizza place.

We walked in to the restaurant and looked about for someone to help us. There seamed to be a few staff milling about and none in too much of a hurry to come over. We did eventually catch someone's eye and were ushered to a table right next to the cash point despite the place only being half full. The tables were a bit crowded together and because of where we'd been seated we felt a bit in the way even though we were on a table for four.

Now my friend being a veggie was looking for something appetizing and different from the menu that was meat-free. There wasn't a great deal to choose from but she decided to go for the Bosco Salad which was warm garlic mushrooms, mozzarella, avocado and tomato on a bed of baby spinach and rocket served with a honey and mustard dressing at a cost of £8.55 with a side of garlic bread with mozzarella for £2.95

I plumped for the Padana Pizza which was goat's cheese, spinach and red onion with tangy caramelised onion at a cost of £8.55 and ordered two diet cokes. Knowing that the pizzas were made to order we also ordered a dish of mixed olives to put us over until the meal came £1.95.

We placed our order with the rather bored and unimpressed looking waitress and got ourselves comfortable, making comment on the rather unhelpful staff in this nice restaurant.

The olives came straight away along with the diet cokes, there weren't many on the plate but they were really tasty, and we were really looking forward to the main meal so we waited with anticipation.....and waited....and waited. Eventually my friends salad and side turned up closely followed by my pizza which was steaming hot but uncut.

My friend was quite disappointed in the size of the salad as she was expecting a lot more for the £8.55 price tag...more than my pizza for starters and the side of garlic bread was a minuscule pitta bread size portion with a mere 'sprinkling' of cheese on top.

I proceeded to try and gingerly slice my pizza with the blunt knife on the table without burning my fingers and still looking elegant at the same time. I tried to catch the eye of a waitress to ask for a pizza cutter but was flatly ignored as they seamed to be more interested in talking to their 'mates' on another table. I eventually gave up and struggled on with the blunt knife.

Much to my disappointment the pizza was still soggy in the middle, but by this point my friend was halfway through her small and mediocre salad and I was so hungry I didn't want to wait for it to be re-cooked.

I took a mouthful of wilting pizza and promptly spat it back onto the plate in disgust!! There was something distinctly 'off' about this pizza and on closer examination I discovered that the spinach was ROTTEN!!

I immediately looked around for a member of staff to complain to but they seemed to have deserted the place, no one in site except for the one waitress who had spent the last half an hour flitting between the kitchen and her mates, but she was oblivious to my predicament as she blathered on regardless.

I eventually gave up trying to catch someone's attention and placed the offending meal at the end of the table in full sight hoping someone might have even a shred of customer service and ask if everything was ok.........10 mins passed...10 minutes!!! All the while various members of staff walked passed the end of the table, glanced at the pizza and either panicked and walked away fearing a confrontation or ignored it completely.

Eventually the waitress who took our order came over to ask if we would like anymore drinks and completely ignored the almost untouched pizza right under her nose. I told her politely that we didn't want another drink but could she take away the pizza as the spinach was rotten.....her answer to the question was, 'would you like us to make you another one with FRESH spinach as the spinach used on this one was FROZEN'!!

I could hardly believe my ears, all the schpeil on the website about using amazing fresh ingreditents etc together with the £8.55 I was expecting to pay for my delicious handmade pizza and here I was being told that they hadn't infact used fresh ingreditents at all!!!

I told her that no thank you I did not want a replacement and at this she huffed and stormed off with it in hand muttering something like 'we'll take it off your bill then'. Too damn right you'll take it off the bill!!!

By this time my friend had finished here salad and I pinched a slice of warm but tasteless garlic bread before asking for the bill. When they came to take the payment, a different woman plonked down the switch machine on the end of the table and wandered off to speak to the 'mates' on the other table for a moment before returning and huffily asking my friend to key in her pin code....the total bill had come to £17.35 that's WITHOUT my pizza and she didn't even bother to ask if everything was to our satisfaction.

Now we weren't at all rude, we didn't kick up a fuss and start screaming at the waitress about the disgusting food and high prices etc etc, we were calm and pleasant which is more than they deserved after their abysmal customer service and we didn't even get an offer of a free starter of a complementary round of drinks on the house. The fact is, they just couldn't be bothered.

We left feeling totally annoyed and deflated and walked over to TGI Friday's which was a shining example of friendly and prompt customer service!! (That's a review for another time).

My opinion
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I will never, ever set foot in this particular establishment again. I have made everyone I know fully aware of the service they can expect from this branch and how much it will cost them for the privilege of being looked upon like dog dirt. Now by no means am I saying that all branches are like this, they probably aren't but it has definitely put me off trying another one for a very, very long time!!

Oh and I have sent an edited version of this to their customer contact centre via the website to see if they can redeem themselves with a full and prompt apology...I won't hold my breath.

Summary: Do I have to give this a star at all?