Ciao Pizza — Restaurant in City Centre

Have been a loyal customer for a while, and have been happy with their quality and service, but today has been an unfortunate turn of events.

Prices have increased by 30% in last year or so. Which is understandable considering the times we’re in. BUT, their toppings have decreased considerably. And that affects the overall quality and experience of the pizza. Today the pizza was below average. Hardly any sauce for both of the pizza bases, hardly any basil on the Margherita (4 very small leaves on a large pizza? Really?), very little flavour from both, not sure if you’ve changed your cheese but today was very very bland tasting.

We’ve dined in before on numerous occasions, but today we were constantly harassed by a drunken beggar from outside, shouting and swearing at us to give him food. NONE of the staff did anything about it. There must’ve been around 6 staff (from what we could see)and a manager who weren’t all busy at the same time, so why not do anything to create a more harmonious dining experience for your customers? Made the dining experience very unpleasant and uncomfortable. I’ll add, this venue is often surrounded by beggars harassing customers - not the first time we experience this. Why isn’t the owner being informed of this and putting better security in place or why isn’t anything being seriously done about it? We have complained about the beggars before, yet this still continues.

Tipping: since when has it become standard to charge a table of two people a service fee? The cashier (?) Anele or the waiter took it upon him/herself to create a table of 5 to have a tip automatically added? Since when has this become law to add a tip automatically onto the bill? We’d gladly tip our waiter for great service given, and often we’d tip more than 10%, but who gives them the right to demand a tip by adding it onto the bill? It seemed very devious to say the least. Already waiters are getting an hourly wage simply by being there and do their job as required, (often the service would be below average, simply to take an order and hand over the food, nothing more, and in my opinion that’s nothing more than what a cashier could do, but we must tip for that!, why?) but now the customer must pay their wages too? This is absurd and totally uncalled for.

Based on the above criteria, we will not be back. We’ve noticed a slow and steady deterioration of this franchise and after today’s experience, we’re no longer prepared to tolerate this level of poor service...

Extremely Disappointing Experience: Ciao Pizza Fell Short in Every Way!

My recent visit to Ciao Pizza left me utterly disappointed and frustrated. The entire experience was a series of failures that showcased the restaurant's incompetence and lack of professionalism. I would strongly advise against visiting this establishment if you value a decent dining experience.

First and foremost, the initial pizza I received was burnt beyond recognition. It was clear that no attention was paid to its preparation, resulting in an inedible mess. While I appreciated that they remade the pizza, I was shocked to discover that they cooked it in the same part of the oven where the remains of the burnt pizza were still present. This led to the bottom of the new pizza tasting just as charred as the first, completely ruining any hopes of salvaging the meal.

To make matters worse, the behavior of the staff was simply unacceptable. Instead of acknowledging their mistake and attempting to rectify the situation, they were too busy laughing and flirting amongst themselves. It was as if our dissatisfaction meant nothing to them, and their lack of focus and professionalism was evident throughout the entire interaction. With three staff members present, it should not have been too much to ask for them to concentrate for a mere 90 seconds to cook a pizza properly.

Furthermore, when we raised our concerns and expressed our disappointment, we were met with a weak apology that felt insincere and lacking any genuine remorse. What made matters even more frustrating was the fact that they offered no form of compensation for the subpar experience we endured. It became abundantly clear that customer satisfaction was not a priority for them.

In conclusion, my experience at Ciao Pizza was a total disaster. The burnt pizza, the staff's unprofessional behavior, the weak apology, and the lack of compensation all contributed to a dining experience that was nothing short of useless. I strongly urge you to avoid this place at all costs. There are numerous other restaurants in the area that actually care about their customers and strive to provide quality service. Ciao Pizza is not one of them, and you will only find disappointment and frustration...

Extremely disappointed with out last and final visit to Ciao Pizza, since the first experience in 2020, we have enjoyed this pizza place. Unfortunately a lot had changed for the worst at there Cape Town branch.

Terrible Service : We were greeted with a very rude waitress who made us feel unwelcome by her attitude to assist, as we clearly disturbed her meal whilst standing behind the counter eating and drinking infront of guests, the service was all downhill from there as her rude comments also didn’t go unnoticed.

The Pizza ( Major drop in standards ): Me and my friend ordered the prawn chilli pizza and pepperoni pizza.

The prawn pizza was by far the worst Iv ever eaten, extremely bland prawns besides the harsh taste of chilli, has no flavour and the prawns which is actually shrimp seemed recently defrosted hence not absorbing any flavour! The pizza was also completely drenched in oil which made us sick. Gave this away outside the store to a homeless person.

The pepperoni tasted much better but it’s unmistakably to thin and collapses easily. A definite drop in standard from the early days of eating at Ciao!

Cleanliness and overall Experience: Despite our disappointing at the service and food we also witness a rat running around at the rear area where the toilet is, another guest mentioned this to the guys at the counter who seemed unfazed , never apologised and carried on scrolling on there phones at the counter !!

Personally we will never set foot back at Ciaos Long Street! But I hope the passionate owner I met a few times who used to oversea this store reads this and makes some drastic changes to his business before loosing more customers.

NB: If you unable to get properly trained staff who want to work in the service industry don’t just pick anyone off the street to manage and care for you business , they will run it into the ground and that’s where Ciao Cape Town is...