PizzaExpress — Restaurant in Carlisle

There yesterday meeting pals another couple they got there just before us to be told that the table our name was attached to had eaten & gone ...which was odd as we booked at 3pm and it's only 5 to 3...so we turn up and that issue is put to bed and sorted...very quiet tbh in there when we arrived. So eventually get our orders taken (woefully understaffed young 18yr boy running about like a mad man cleaning tables taking extra orders also taking walk in customers the lot basically, unreal tbh. (this isn't a cheap place so we expected to be not so hectic when quiet) so eventually get our orders which must've taken half an hour probably more and we can see there's 2 people making the pizzas. No one actually looking see if the three tables occupied wanted more drinks or were happy etc ...Eventually got served and tbh they were Luke warm so god only knows what was going on behind that counter maybe playing 'jenga' or cards ....so we've ended up with a £120 bill for pizzas and 2 drinks each due to delay of food 😡, One more staff member would've made such a difference ...there's plenty nice Italians in our town will go back to those in future.check 'pizza express' on Trustpilot 3 stars ✨ not good anywhere it seems. Ps the staff we were in contact with were lovely but stressed I must say that, obvs not there fault, understaffed. Go if you must but much nicer & cheaper lovely Italian restaurants in...

We went to Pizza Express in Carlisle for my son's birthday dinner. It's clean and well laid out and the staff were happy polite and efficient.

The food was really nice and cooked perfectly. Our waitress was lovely and doesn't a lot of time chatting to our two children especially the oldest as it was his birthday.

The kids activity packs kept both kids engaged for the whole time we were in the restaurant and they were different from that ones we were given a couple of weeks ago at our last visit.

The only negatives (and they're both quite small ones) were; the seat we were given was right next to the door and everytime it opened there was a really cold blast of air. The second negative was the volume of the music. Normally it's s nice background level but for some reason it was really loud on this particular day. Now I don't know if this was because it was a Friday whereas every other time we've been it's been a week day. It did make things difficult for me as I wear a hearing aid and too much background noise makers it very difficult for me to focus on conversations.

Overall we had a lovely time and the birthday boy thoroughly...

Soooo disappointed! I live abroad, and Pizza Express is one of my favourite UK restaurants. We stopped in Carlisle driving from Manchester Airport up to Aberdeenshire on the way home for the holidays. Paid for 1 hour's parking, which would usually more than suffice; however, 45mins after arriving, we were still waiting on our pizzas. The wait staff were pleasant, but had not picked up on our long wait till I raised it. I asked how long our order would be, learned it would be another 15 minutes at least, and so we just cancelled it, and left. Notably, most of the orders we observed going out, were not being delivered to customers in the restaurant, but to Uber delivery guys waiting in the hall just outside. Our waiter apologised about this, and explained that they had no control over it. I'm not sure if this is symptomatic of UK restaurants as a whole these days, but I've certainly never, in at least twenty years of visiting Pizza Express, had to wait an hour for a meal. Too bad the people who can't even be bothered to get off their sofas and walk into town for some food are the ones who get...