Dough Club — Local services in Manchester

Dough Club has a convenient location between the main University of Manchester campus and the Manchester University Teaching Hospitals, and so I finally decided to give it a try after finishing work yesterday evening. At 6 PM, the place was completely empty, and there were no staff in sight. However, the self-service ordering screen was fairly easy to use and placing my order was intuitive. There is some seating available, albeit very limited - only about four chairs, if I recall correctly - so I chose to have my food as a takeaway.

I had placed an order for a plain mac and cheese, along with plain chicken wings and a garlic and herb sauce. I must say, I found it quite ludicrous that the sauces were priced at £1.20 for a tiny pot. More surprisingly, there were no basic condiments on offer, i.e. ketchup or mayonnaise, which I imagine would appeal to a broader range of customers than the more obscure options available such as mango sauce. It is worth noting to potential customers, due to the self-service machines, only card payments are accepted.

Shortly after placing my order, a staff member - the young woman wearing a hijab (unfortunately, I did not get her name) - came to the front to greet me and prepare my order. She was polite, professional, and efficient, and my order was ready quickly.

That said, it is unfortunate I feel compelled to point out a significant concern. Another staff member - a young woman with dark hair - was moving between the food preparation area and the packing station without a hairnet, or even her hair tied back. It was rather off-putting from a hygiene perspective. I must emphasise it is not the individual staff member’s fault, as of course the onus lies with management to ensure proper training in basic food safety standards for all employees.

As for the food itself, while Dough Club is self-renowned for their pizzas, I am not convinced their other offerings reflect the same standard. The mac and cheese was mediocre at best. I have honestly had better from Costa Coffee. The chicken wings were a slight improvement, but still nothing to write home about. I also failed to see the appeal of the extremely excessive (an understatement yet) amount of crispy onions used to coat both dishes. Overall, I was not particularly impressed by the experience, and I suppose the empty restaurant at what should have been a busy time made a bit more sense in hindsight.

That said, I may return to try their pizza in the near-future and see whether it redeems yesterday...

I was driving home from a work event in Manchester last week and my daughter phoned me asking what was for dinner...so I asked if she wanted me to bring home some Detroit style pizza.

(the context to this is that she tried Detroit style pizza for the first time last month because I brought home some pizza slices from Detroit Slims - which were excellent!)

My daughter said yes - expecting me to go to Detroit Slims again. The problem was that I was too far out of town...so I asked Google to recommend a place nearer to where I was...and it came up with Dough Club. It had a 4.4 rating on Google so I thought it was worth a try.

Dough Club is a takeaway only place. You order on a screen and the guys in the kitchen (behind a glass partition) make the pizza. The place was empty when I walked in so I tapped on one of the 2 order terminals to order a whole pizza - to be told that they didn't have any!

I asked the guys in the kitchen and they said to use the other terminal. I did that and the range of pizzas came up. I chose the meat combo one...which cost £14.90...but there was no option for extra toppings.

Again...I asked the guys in the kitchen...and they said they would put extra toppings on for me...which was really good of them. That's why I've given 5 stars for service.

The pizza was done in around 10-15 mins and I took it away.

Now I've had a few Detroit style pizzas around Manchester - and they have all been very good - so I was expecting this one to be similar.

But I was so so wrong!

Honestly it was probably the WORST pizza of any kind I have ever eaten! The base was really heavy and dense...and it was stone cold in the middle!

It was - ironically - like eating dough...

My daughter said the same when I got home. She was thoroughly unimpressed.

I don't know how they managed to make such an undercooked pizza...maybe it was the extra toppings...but I do know I won't ever...

here my rating for each item I ordered

Pepperoni pizza Rating 9/10 Nice pizza, could do with more honey but was very decent.

Jerk wing Rating 8.5/10 Very expensive for what they are but was decent wings . What would elevate it is grill these wings in tge jerk sauce rather than making them plain then adding sauce as the sauce doesn't marinate or penetrate into the meat.

Milkshake Rating 10/10 My combo of pistachio, milk chocolate and lotus biscuits was Banging!!! At £6 it's very expensive though as with everything else on the menu. If it was all 35% less than what there currently charging I would be a regular weekly customer but unfortunately I can only afford to eat here every 3-5 months at...