Ronnies Wood Fired Pizza — Restaurant in Dudley

Had heard good things about Ronnies. Unfortunately, our experience wasn’t great overall.

I’d like to start by saying that the pizza bases are EXTREMELY good. A lovely savoury taste, just enough crisp to them and a great size…

Now on to the rest of our dining experience:

3 pizzas and 2 starters, all ordered together: first pizza came out missing a topping (olives). We let the (friendly) waitress know, she apologised and I joked with my wife that the kitchen will probably just chuck some olives on top, rather than actually make the effort to slice/heat them (which would’ve been acceptable - we didn’t expect a fresh pizza cooked from scratch). Turns out I shouldn’t have joked - 4 whole olives were thrown on top and the pizza was returned to the table.

The next pizza arrived within a few minutes. Base was as described above and the pizza looked fab. Unfortunately the sauce lacked flavour and the toppings were sparse, which meant it may as well have been a simple pizza, when in fact I’d ordered what I think was called a New Yorker which was supposed to be lifted by a mix of savoury meat and peppers.

I think the kitchen may have forgotten our final pizza as we had to remind the waiting staff we were still waiting for it 20 minutes after the 2nd pizza landed.

The salad, when it eventually arrived. was a good size and tasty.

A few days later, a friend asked if we’d taken advantage of the “offer” which would have made our bill A LOT smaller. Unfortunately, it seems you need to know about it to qualify - the waiting staff didn’t suggest it and the frustration felt from missing out a little has prompted this more detailed review.

The restaurant itself is a nice space to spend time.

Great pizza, served well would make Ronnies a must - unfortunately, I think the team needs to get back to the basics of focusing on the customer experience and creating amazing pizza’s...

We decided to go to hop vault last night, with one of the main reasons being you can now order Ronnie’s to your table there, we placed our order at 19:25, we waited excitingly for food, with their app saying it would be due to arrive at 19:52, time went on and we gave them a call at 20:10 so see how long it would be, at which point we were told the food hadn’t been started yet but that it wouldn’t be much longer, we then find out at 20:17 that our order had been declined via email, we phoned Ronnie's up to enquire as to why, we were told that it would take up to another hour because they were busy. We said we would be happy to wait but would expect a discount for it taking 2hrs to arrive, the staff member checked with their manager and we were told no.

When speaking to the member of staff on the phone you could hear her voice shaking, we reassured her that this wasn’t her fault and insisted on speaking with a manager. By offering food at the hop vault as well as their own restaurant and delivery it is clear management have bit off more than you can chew. When we visited Cup Coffee shop to get some food, and the owner was saying how his wife had also had the same experience with a delivery that night.

When speaking to the manager we expressed our concerns on how audibly stressed his staff member was, and that it’s not fair for his staff to feel like that, especially when she had told us she was new a number of times. I’m assuming the manager we spoke too was Dave from Ronnie's, but he quickly told us our service wasn’t welcome and to order our food from elsewhere in the future. Rather than taking accountability for taking on too many orders, offering services in the hop vault he can’t fulfill, and that his staff member...

Ronnie's is on the first floor and is accessed by a fairly uninspiring staircase. We were looking for it and missed it on our first pass of the high street! Look out for the sandwich board on the pavement. There's nothing special about the main entrance into Ronnie's, and the main dining space is sparcely decorated. It's quite an open space, with a large open fronted pizza oven in one half and dining tables in the other. Each table has a QR code on the table number, which allows relatively simple ordering of food. However, the lack of any pictures of the food is a great shame, as it is hard to know what you're ordering. Counter service is also available. Our pizzas arrived on quirky metal trays but looked great. My daughter's 6-inch pepperoni pizza felt a good size, and she thoroughly enjoyed it. I had a 12-inch New Yorker with small, very tasty, sweet peppers, sausage, and red onion. The flavour was great, and the crust had a fantastic balance of wood-fired smokiness, crunch, and chew. My wife really enjoyed her pizza with anchovies too. Toppings were very well balanced, which produced great flavour and enjoyment. We did also have a pot of chips to share, but these felt rather underwhelming in comparison to the pizza, and we really didn't need them. While we were there, it was very quiet, which we really appreciated, but I imagine with a few groups, the atmosphere could be quite fun. I think a few artistic photographs af the food in the stairwell and around the main space could improve the feeling of the place, and whet the appetite somewhat, but imagine there could be restrictions on what can be done in the stairwell. Considering how nice the food was, it felt like they could be shouting about...