Pop’s Pizza & Sport — Restaurant in Upravna Enota Ljubljana

I wanted to take a group of international co-workers out for pizza on a July evening and reviews seem to point to Pop's Pizza as one of the best pizzas in town. I stopped there physically the week before to book a table and saw one of the staff enter my name into the reservations book. When I book well in advance, I expect that at the time of the booking: the table is waiting for me, I get seated and served within a reasonable amount of time and I can enjoy the evening with whomever I am dining with. When we arrived on the evening of the reservation, all the tables were occupied (only outdoor sitting, for context). First, I waited standing for what was probably about 5 min, trying to get the personell's attention, but it felt much longer with my colleagues waiting behind me. Then I managed to get hold of a waiter and told him that we have a reservation. I was met with a sigh and was told that we need to "wait a bit". This should have been enough for us to walk away. I quickly checked out other restaurants nearby, but they were all full, so having no immediate alternative, we decided to wait. We observed at least one large table, big enough to sit our group, which was occupied by a pair of guests still waiting to be served. The personnel did not make an effort to offer them a smaller table, and told us to take a seat next to them, while we were waiting to be seated properly. After sitting awkwardly with these other guests for some time, which felt quite long again, another table was freed up and we decided to take it. This was met with some eye-rolling and grumbling by the waiter. During the whole time, loud early 2000s hip-hop and pop music was blasting from the speakers (Justin Timberlake and similar). We had some problems hearing each other and could not really talk normally at the table. Asking the staff to reduce the music volume a little bit seemed to help, but only for about 3 minutes. Then the music found itself back at its original volume. We ordered pizzas and drinks and got them served to us about an hour after our original reservation time. The pizzas were ok, but nothing spectacular. All in all, I would rate the experience as 1 star, but the ok quality of pizza raises it to 2 stars. If the restaurant wishes to improve their service, they should start honouring the reservations, invest in skilled serving staff (skip the eye-rolling and the sighs) and improve the ambiance by severely reducing the volume of music. It is possible that the kind of treatment we got is not the norm here, but this shouldn't happen at all. My overall impression is that Pop's Pizza has become a victim of its own success. With several people lining up to get a table throughout the evening, it seems that they have little incentive to provide a high-quality experience to their guests. The loud music added significantly to the discomfort and made us leave quite promptly after finishing our meal. Perhaps this is what it was meant to do. With disappointment, I found our visit at Pop's Pizza to be the low point of the evening. There are other places in Ljubljana, which will honor your booking and not have the disturbingly high volume of music playing. And I know of at least 2 other places that have as good or better pizza, but I do not want to make this review about promoting other restaurants.

So, in summary: Food: * Service:...

Where do i start ? The fantastic food ? The more than exceptional service ?! Where !

This was the easiest five star I have ever given an establishment.

Let me tell you about my experience yesterday (my second visit to the place).

We have waited for our table (sometimes the ques can be long but worth the wait) and we were led to our table and we placed our order. The food arrived and the starter we ordered had ham on it. We dont eat pork so I asked our server (god bless him) that it was my mistake for not reading the ingredients properly and go ahead and charge this dish on us (obviously it was my mistake so it was the right thing to do). The guy refused and insisted on getting a new order without the ham and apologized because he should have informed us (since my wife wears a Hijab). I insisted on him to add it to my bill he still refused and got us a fresh new order without ham (it wasn’t like to took the ham off, it was a brand new order). Now these small things has a major effect on how you like the place. It might seem insignificant the effect it has on someone’s experience is massive.

A special thanks to him for that.

Few days earlier we visited the same place and had an excellent service.

I love establishments that give their staff the freedom to act on the spot. Just gesture plays a major role.

Now the food.

There is nothing to say other than WOW .. The best PIZZA i have had in my travel. The bread was so crispy from outside and light and airy from inside. The ingredients were very fresh and full of flavors. The pizzas were fantastic in every aspect. A special call for the lasagna.. What a dish that was. If you end up eating your pizza and then eating a whole lasagna, it is normal. It is that good that you can have both and not regret it.

I loved this place. I loved everything about it and I wish it all the best.

Next time I am in town, this place will be my...

Honestly just a really bad experience. Food is amazing, but the whole service and team (except the woman who waited us in the end) is horrific!

We sat down on an empty table without any reserved sign when a young student waiter with glasses was really unfriendly and told us to wait in the line even though there were no signs about that process. We then waited about 15 minutes in line while even more tables got empty, only after I spoke in Slovenian language to the staff they seated us immediately. So tourists beware! Discrimination is obvious!

Once seated thankfully the guys from the beginning didn’t wait us anymore, we were thankful to have the only woman at this time in the restaurant which took care about our orders. Compliments to her! Extremely friendly, professional and caring!

She would have turned this around solely on her own, but then the guys who are baking Pizza‘s decided to all go on break the same time. That means that I recieved my lasagne, while my girlfriend waited another 20 minutes for her Pizza since everyone was on break at the same time. After I finished my food, finally the pizza arrived. Again, food was great - but the experience just awful!

I do need to note once more that our waiter did everything she could and apologised multiple times for this - she‘s not at fault, but it doesn’t help if they guys who should be baking pizza are running after girls, complimenting their breasts and harassing them while they go on toilet and then going onto a break at the same time all together while guests are still waiting for food.

The owner of this place should invest in better trained staff, not in students which are obviously high and don’t care about what they do. The concept and quality of the food is there, but the execution and management is...