Rudy's Pizza Napoletana - Birmingham — Restaurant in Birmingham

My wife and I were visiting Birmingham and we decided to have pizza on a saturday afternoon. Looking around for the best place we can do that, we stumble upon this place. We have decided to drive to central, parked and walked to the restaurant to enjoy a nice meal together. There were a few people queueing, hence we have waiting for about 3 minutes. There was a nice vibe and the food looked great from what we could see. We finnally got to the hostess desk and we said we want to have a meal, to which she replied there is no way you would be able to do that now. There were around 10 empty tables, which I could see, maybe more not visible from the door, where we were standing. I asked her why we can not sit as there are so many tables free, to which she replied that all the tables are reserved. Amazing right? Ten tables all reserved in the same time, when we were there. I can tell what happened here. Wjile we were queueing, there was a couple that were sat down and 2 more 4 members families before us. Both families were obviously foreign, as they were struggling with english, tourists, but you know what? Both families were sat down, without holding a reservation. Nice, right? The hostess took the liberty, or maybe this comes from the management, to refuse two people party, because I believe, 4 people makes them more money, for sure. We are not the type of people sitting in a restaurant for hours over a coke, we would have been out in 45 minutes,a s we had furtehr plans. The hostess did not care, was very bored and careless and plainly refused us to sit, as per her words for several hours, which obviously we walked away. It was very upsetting to be fair, as I believe the food is great, as we have ordered it via uber eats later same night, and I believe having a person like that representing the face of your company, careless, bored and playing with her phone in the same time, appaling. I would not want this person working for my company for sure. You have a great score, because you are doing somethiing right, but make sure you do not let people like that to drag you down. If this is the management decising to vet people at the entrance, then it is not her fault at all. For sure I would never come there when I am...

The pizza is always perfectly made. I do love their pizzas. I can't say the same for the servers though. I've gone there thrice with my two friends. We felt like we were being rushed to leave all throughout our stay. They kept on interrupting my friend's conversation whilst we were eating but never did bother to top up our water. We were only there for less than an hour. I did scan around to see see if the dining area was fully seated but it was just half the capacity and we were seated closest to the toilet, far away from the entrance. Another shocking thing is my server automatically added an optional service charge to our total bill when they should have verbally asked first if we would want to add it. She didn't let me know, she simply just added it. I feel it is a bit sneaky. I have dined is several other restaurants and pubs, chains like these. They would disclose the option of providing optional service charge and the amount I could provide. I respect them for that. I do let them know I would like and the optional SC is added to my bill. I understand how there can be a mandatory service charge if we were a group of six. We were only a group of three. Its a good location with really great pizza . I just wished the same amount of customer service training could be provided to the serving staff. I will be switching to their Brindleyplace branch from now on where the servers may be a bit...

We stopped here for an early dinner yesterday after seeing a show in town. They were fairly busy but able to accommodate us without a booking which was great, it was around 4pm so not quite prime time which may have helped.

The places has a very interesting vibe with decor we found a little odd. Some walls were finished in clean smooth plaster painted off white, other walls and the whole ceiling looked 'unfinshed', but not necessarily in a good way. It genuinely felt like a building site. If you can ignore that though, the atmosphere is great and it was a pleasant place. The pizza was exceptional, we can see why its popular. Some great choices and it tasted fabulous

The only thing that let it down for us was the service. There are lots of staff stood around but it was really hard to get anyones attention when needed. We sat for ages once we finished eating before anyone responded to our attempts to get attention to ask for a take home box and the bill. The waitress beoyght the box and then went and stood by the side staring at nothing for ages. We had to flag abother waitress down to ask for the bill who seemed rather confused by our request. All in all it took an unreasonably long time to get the bill and pay.

However, we did enjoy the food and visit overall and would give them another chance as appreciate all places...