Sams Pizza — Restaurant in Batemans Bay

So the only reason I can leave a 1 on this page is because there is no zero and the first night I attended was fantastic.

The night after we attended, we decided to go back while on holidays because the service was so great the night before.

Once we arrive, we notice our waitress Casey was in a bad mood, to which we didn’t really buy into and went on ordering our food. We specifically asked for no chili as my partner doesnt like it. After about 40 minutes our pizza and pasta comes out and the pizza has chili on it, I prompt the waitress politely saying ‘I’m sorry but this pizza has chili on it’ the waitress snatches the pizza off my table and walks off.

Moments later she comes back with the same pizza in her hands and states ‘the chef said there’s no chili on it’. With much surprise I said quite firmly ‘I’m not lying, I can taste it’.

While I had 3-4 staff members around me she takes it away and rudely prompting me that she will get another one made.

While she walks off I look behind her and notice two young staff members which where the apparent chefs laughing and I could swear I read the lips of one of them saying a racial slur ( but cannot Confirm because I didn’t hear it and can’t read lips), I immediately got on the defensive and asked one of them to come over to my table. I asked him if something was funny and he immediately realized that I had noticed his unproffessionalism. He scurried off when I said to him no worries.

after I finished I said to my partner, pay for it and I’m going outside because I don’t want a confrontation due to there actions and just rude nature. My partner went to the counter and paid and tried to explain to the waitress or staff member in charge on what occurred and make that complaint, she tried but didn’t get anywhere because waitress just argued through the whole interaction.

A week later, we decided to call the venue to discuss the occurrence, Emma the owner answers and I explained who I was and my opening feedback was commending her resteraunt and staff from the first night we arrived, as soon a mentioned the second night, I could notice Emma get defensive and her comments below are as follows ‘you threatened my staff’, my staff said your obnoxious and if I was there it would have been a different story, I asked her to explain what she meant but with complete struggle to get her words out, I decided to end the call with the comment ‘good luck with your business with that attitude’.

Unfortunately as a critiqu you come across these out of big city resteraunts and although location and setting is perfect, you cannot teach manners or cooking abilities if owners insist that there perfect. Arguing is the number one no no for an customer serviced based business. In regards to Sams, there pizzas are average, there paster is horrible and that home brew beer that they try and hock is like drinking p$&/ after an asparagus meal. They only reason they have a packed house is because there isn’t any competition of that type in the area.

Response to owner Emma: so your staff are selling a beer that they are calling there own brew, it’s funny that you as the owner, your not aware of this, secondly I did hang up because just like your staff, you feel arguing and calling your customers a liar and obnoxious because you didn’t like what you were hearing. Emma, if you had listened and read my review, the reason why we returned was because the service was so good from the first night. And the last thing I said before I hung up was ‘good luck with your business’ while you where banging on about your god, now...

Do not support a business that racially discriminates. The food was quite good and service throughout the meal was fine until the end. When we first came in, they told us the tables inside were "fully reserved" so we'd have to sit outside if we want to eat here. We agreed and sat outside even though it was raining and windy, the tables we were directed to had NO reserved signs put on them. About an hour later we were still eating our meal and decided to order some coffee. The waitress accepted our order but then came back five minutes later and told us we had to get our coffee as takeaway as our table was "reserved" and we needed to settle the bill and leave. Other than the fact that there were 4 other tables near us that were completely free and had no reserved signs, there are several other problems. First of all, they informed us that the tables we were directed to outside were free and had no reservations. Secondly, they could have informed us anytime throughout our meal that the tables were reserved so we'd have a heads up to finish our meals. Thirdly, as I mentioned earlier, there were many empty tables both inside the restaurant and outside. It was unnecessary to tell us to leave immediately when they've never informed us that there were "reservations" made for our table. You could've politely asked us to move to another table. Some lady (perhaps the owner as she was not wearing the staff uniform) then came out after the waitress and asked if she could clean up the table because "You were meant to leave this table before 6.30. Our other customers are waiting." Great service. We have good reason to believe this behaviour is due to racial discrimination. When we first came in, they seemed to not want to seat us and then afterwards they acted like they wanted us gone as fast as possible and was unwilling to provide service to us even though they clearly have the resources to seat us. It's such a shame that this place has good food but disgusting behaviour.

EDIT: Let me reply to your response. The staff DID NOT inform us that the tables needed to be given back at 6.30PM BEFORE or DURING our dining experience. We were told that the tables outside were not reserved and there were also no reserved signs on the tables we were lead to. The last waitress who took our coffee order was very happy to do so and did not mention anything about having to vacate the table when we made the order at about 6.20PM or so. She came back to our table about 5 minutes after taking our coffee order to inform us that the tables were suddenly 'reserved' for 6.30pm and we'll need to pay and leave. We paid the bill and left your restaurant about 5 minutes after 6.30PM, so your customers did not "wait for over 15 minutes after their reserved time" like you claimed. Funny that you mention following social distancing rules when the tables you had inside the restaurant were filled with many occupied tables seated right next to each other. Both waitresses who serviced our table were very nice, we believe that you are the one who prompted this sort of response. We were made to feel unwelcomed by you, as I have already explained that your comment about how we were meant to already be gone before 6.30pm is offensive as we were never informed about this beforehand and your attitude implies that we acted in a wrongful manner. Your staff are nice but you are not. The very fact that you are passive aggressive and condescending in your reply to our review shows that we were not mistaken with our analysis of your attitude...

We were initially told the restaurant was booked out and that takeaway would be a 1 hr wait. So we decided to order takeaway and were then told the wait was 1hr 20 mins after paying for our order. As we had a group of kids we decided to cancel the kids pizzas and wait for the adult pizzas. As soon as we mentioned cancelling 2 pizzas we were told by the lady with glasses on the till in an extremely rude tone as to "oh now you want to cancel 2 pizzas". I was like yes as the wait was longer than we were initially told. She then got even ruder and said that we took 20 mins to decide! She kept talking over the top of me every time I said she was being rude. Said to expect this as it was Easter long weekend. Even the chef joined in on the rudeness! I rate this restaurant as racist as thats why she behaved so badly. We ended up cancelling the entire order. Never go here. The pizzas aren't even wood fired?! Whats the big deal. Staff there need to be sacked and learn that Australia is now a multicultural society not filled with rude individuals like this. If this lady in the glasses is the manager then she set a very poor example for her staff. If you are frustrated working over Easter long weekend don't take it out on customers who are paying your wages!!

I have read the owners review and am disappointed that there is no ownership of the rude behaviour we experienced. Whether we tried twice or thrice to book is not the issue in question here. I understand why it would have taken longer to wait for the pizzas BUT it was the lady in glasses that initiated the rudeness by stating in an extremely annoyed tone "oh so now you want to cancel your pizzas" THIS WAS THE TRIGGER POINT SO TAKE SOME RESPONSIBILITY! Also if it had been explained to us PROFESSIONALY that there were many 30 orders taken in between rather than being told rudely that we took a long time to decide it would have dissapated the situation. Tone goes a long way! Every time I mentioned that she was being rude I got talked over. This is what made me believe it was racist. And btw I said "get a life" at the end of the whole...