PizzaExpress — Restaurant in Elmbridge

From the moment of walking into the restaurant me, my sister and her 2-year-old child had waited around 5 minutes to be seated. I was only able to see about one employee who was taking an order of another table so unable to tend to us. Afterwards, she had completed the order and came to seat us to our table but seemed very rushed and as if she was just trying to get rid of us from the get go.

The waitress who was taking our order, Lilly, was very impatient. As my sister was reading out her child’s order, the waitress interrupts and asks me if I would like anything to eat. My sister had not finished the piccolo kids order yet, Lilly just continued to do what suited her. From this moment onwards I had noticed another employee, perhaps a runner, my sister had told the runner that if any food was ready it can come out as theres no need to wait for all the other dishes.

When the food arrived it was quite average I had ordered the Pollo Pesto and while eating my meal, I noticed throughout, that lots of the pasta pieces were extremely hard to bite on and to chew, unsure as to if it was burnt, or raw… At this point my sister had noticed the drink from the piccolo meal had not arrived and asked the employee if we are able to get the drink.

When we recited the bill after all our food, we had noticed that there was a double charge for the kids drink, but we only received one drink. We told Lilly and she sorted out that issue for us, but seemed as if she was also unsure how it happened too…?

Overall the experience could have been a lot better but even the restaurant is very dirty and dusty with cobwebs from the lights to dust on the walls right...

We really want our experience with Pizza Express to work but it really just doesn't quite tick the boxes - and this all boils down to service, which is a common thread on here, and is easily fixable - you only need to visit any of the other chains in Weybridge to see this can easily be achieved.

The food is excellent so the guys in the kitchen are working well. But the service is always well below par - we have visited 3 to 4 times over the last couple of months (we are trying) and every time we hit the same issues....

Very slow to be seated Constantly trying to grab waiters attention Cleanliness

We are a family of 5 (with 2 5 year olds) so we spend £100 a visit and we are on the border of ditching this. When we had Prezzo in Weybridge we loved it - food excellent, service also excellent - so it can be done. And with one less competing brand you should have a great opportunity here.

It feels where this is going wrong is no one is running the floor - it's like watching 5 year olds play football, no one maintains their position and everyone chases the ball. The result is poor cleanliness (especially in the toilets) and around the floor, very slow seating - stood in the middle of the room like lemons, and a severe lack of attention throughout the meal.

Come on guys - there is clearly a GM responding to these messages on here - why are you not visible in branch sorting this out?

We will give you one more attempt then...

Pizza Unexpress would be a more appropriate name!! Quite busy initially, no service, not even to order a drink. After ordering, nothing arrived for ages. Waitress extremely good at avoiding eye contact to ask if anything was coming. Chilli King Prawn starters were a joke, though not a funny 1!! Ordered 3 of them. 2 or 3, or even 2.5 tiny, cheap frozen prawns in them. King would be an offence under the Trade Descriptions Act!!! Chilli tomato would be a more accurate description. Pizza arrived lukewarm, as though it had been sat for sometime before being brought. Wasn't busy by now, but still took ages. 1 pizza arrived minus the extras that were ordered. Bill arrived, eventually, with items on that were 'free' specials. There were delivery guys waiting inside all the time we were there and seemed to get priority. All these guys standing around wearing large bike helmets doesn't add to the atmosphere of what is supposedly a restaurant in my opinion, detracts from it. All of this reminds me why I hardly ever go to P (U)E and can't understand why they are at all popular. Though this is probably the worst...