The Empress — Restaurant in Cambridge

Good pizza, but attitude toward customer service could really use improvement. My wife and young son and I visited recently, having dined here just once before, planning to enjoy the Monday two-for-one discount. We couldn’t remember the exact size of the pizzas, but I’d had an intense workout that morning and felt like I’d eat more than one. Ordering three pizzas seemed nonsensical with a two-for-one deal running, so we ordered four. When they arrived, the pizzas were bigger than we’d remembered, which we initially thought was lovely (we were very hungry!). We managed to eat only two and a quarter pizzas, leaving one and three quarters.

My wife went to ask for a couple boxes, and here’s where things got uncomfortable. The man said no, and for a brief moment, she thought he was joking, but then he followed it up with an explanation that “the two-for-one deal is not for take away.” He agreed to give her one box, but she reported the interaction felt slightly condescending (like an “I’ll let you get away with it this time” tone one might use with a child). Then on the way back to the table, she overheard an employee talking in a very low voice, just catching the words, “…some people have caught onto it…” She came back and told me everything, sharing that she was embarrassed, like everyone thought we were trying to scam the restaurant. Hating to waste food, we managed to get all the remaining pizza in the box, but this meant it was needlessly smashed and messy.

So what started as a nice evening, ended in us feeling quite uncomfortable, and we’re not planning to return anytime soon. I think the Empress needs to rethink the two-for-one policy, to make it more customer-friendly and flexible, even if that means re-pricing it. They also probably want to rethink the approach to customer service in general. Many businesses go “above and beyond” for their customers – this was the...

Amendment: 30/12/23. After my earlier experience (below), the landlord of the Empress reached out. They asked whether I would like to return and try the pizza again at another time and hopefully they can meet my expectations, as they agreed that the pizza in the first instance didn't meet their own. I was very pleased to do so, as this is a lovely pub! My friend and I had the Empress Bad Boy & the Sausage & Onion pizza today. We were very impressed. Really as nice as every other review says, and with this quality, very well priced! It's great this pub has a team that cares. Image below amended to reflect just the pizza from this visit.

23/12/23: 3/5 stars. Disappointing! This place is a great pub, so love the drinks there but decided to try the pizza the other day and I was massively underwhelmed. I ordered the mushroom pizza, with vegan cheese (appreciate the option being there!), and a picture is below. There was barely any mushroom on the pizza, and I thought the pizza was just very lacking in flavour. Not much in the way of herbs or seasoning, even though I think the menu said it had a bunch of stuff going on. For all the reviews, I was expecting a bit more? The garlic bread was good, but it's a low bar as I don't think that is too difficult...

Pizza was fine, BUT service was awful! I was waiting for 30 min for my pizza, then we asked the waiter who took our order about it and he nodded, then we were waiting for 10 more minutes when I lost my patience and asked another waiter; apparently the order hasn’t been processed (even after we asked about it!!), I got my pizza 5 min later and it was missing basil.... I LOVE BASIL!!

After all that they also charged 10% for the service!

And just in general the service wasn’t good at all - the same waiter brought us someone else’s order, it took ages to order more drinks and more pizzas.

And another thing - my friend wanted to go there only because of Christmas decorations, so she has booked a table two weeks in advance but she didn’t know that they don’t do decorations in one room and guess where they booked the table for her, yes in only one room with no decorations and when she asked for another table they said all booked, very frustrating.

Conclusion - you can find delicious pizza in much more welcoming place with much...