PizzaExpress — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

Decided to treat our daughter to Pizza Express for her 5th birthday. It seemed okay when we arrived. The place was about half full and it would appear that there are sections with their own waiting staff. Our section had ten tables, only 5 were in use and everyone at those tables had already been served or were already half way through their dinner. It took 15 mins before our order was taken. The waitress was pleasant enough and our daughter declared it was her 5th birthday and she is here for pizza. The waitress responded that it was her son's 15th birthday today as well and she hoped our daughter was having a lovely time. We got our pizzas after not too long a wait, but one of the issues is the base we chose. We went with Romana, a thinner base, with more flavour and toppings. Our pizzas were scarce with the toppings, as well as the sauce. You could say that the whole thing was spread as thin as the dough and it cost more. The waitress also forgot our daughters juice order, they both had an extensive conversation about the juice, which in itself isn't so much of a problem. But the only reason it was forgotten about, is because the waitress seemed to be more focused on another table just behind us. She appeared to be arguing with the customer over an issue about toppings being few and far between (of which we agree). It then became very clear that they were arguing. The person she was arguing with, was stating that they are not paying for the pizza (after having already been given another one, as a replacement) and this went on and on. My wife went to the bathroom and while she was away, the waitress came through with a big birthday cake and started singing "Happy Birthday" and came straight towards our table. My daughter's eyes lit up and I was genuinely quite surprised, that my daughter might be getting a cake. It turns out, it was for the table right behind us, with the complaining customers. I did say to my daughter, that I hadn't ordered a cake and that other people have their birthdays on the same day, but as you can imagine, she got pretty upset. My issue with the waitress doing this, was that she could have come to that table from the opposite direction and my daughter wouldn't have noticed. There's a twist, the customer that she was arguing with, to the point of almost shouting, then bringing them a birthday cake and her entire focus being solely on that table, is that it was her partner and son! I get it, you're working, but it's your son's birthday and you want them to come to your place of work for dinner, but you should not be the one waiting on them, especially if you're arguing with your partner and you've lost all interest in actually serving the other customers. We foolishly asked for dessert because our daughter wanted ice cream and we asked for the dessert menu for ourselves. So our waitress never took the ice cream order down because she said she'll complete our dessert order together. We waited 15 minutes. She never came back! I demanded the bill from another server. We paid and promptly left, with absolutely no desire to return. We went and got ice cream from somewhere else. Would 100%...

Arrived just after 5 to a maybe quarter full restaurant, seated fairly quickly and drinks orders taken promptly, the decent service ended there unfortunately, waited about 10 minutes for the starter which isn't overly bad but we then waited for a further 40 minutes, while watching another table give up and leave I said to my son, they have 2 more minutes before we're leaving and going to McDonald's! after which we were told you're food is the oven, another 15 minutes passed before the pizza was actually served - I am dining with my 5 year old child, along with most tables in there, trying to feed hungry kids and get them home in time for bed etc and this wait time is unacceptable, to make matters worse the diners were watching takeaway orders being punted out the kitchen in droves, giving the impression that this was the priority and not the diners within the actual restaurant, this was raised with staff at the time. Now you can forgive some lateness if it's a knockout meal, sadly in this case the pizza was just the cherry on top of a very unpleasant dining experience, ordered the leggera which is cited as being a salad filled hole pizza, throwing a bunch of rocket leaves in does not really equate to a...

For a quick bite to eat we were in the restaurant for over 2 hours and with a small toddler it became an issue.

It started fine but clearly staff were completely overwhelmed even though the restaurant was only half full and there were 3 staff working. I asked all 3 staff for a pizza box to take our leftovers away and the ice lolly to finish my sons kids meal…it took over 30 minutes and the attitude of one of the staff members was rude and obnoxious and the time he spent trying to make excuses that they were busy, he could have just got the pizza box and ice lolly I’d asked for.

As someone who frequently visits this restaurant, the visit really is a lucky dip, as some staff are lovely, helpful and organised but others are incompetent, rude and seriously need to learn some basic customer service skills. It costs nothing to smile and a sincere apology goes a long way instead of trying to make excuses for poor service.

A review of staff that work here really needs to be done as a few really are bringing down the whole restaurant with their rude attitude and complete lack of...