Pala Restaurant — Restaurant in England

I've given this restaurant two chances and both times have been badly disappointed, I won't be giving them a third chance. The first time, after walking across town specifically to order pizzas as I couldn't get through on the phone, I was then told they couldn't do any pizzas as they'd run out of dough!! Surely that's a basic necessity for a pizzeria, how can they run out of dough!! But these things happen, so we decided to give them another chance to redeem themselves. Again we were told we couldn't order over the phone, and was forced to use JustEat instead and pay their higher prices (no reason was given for their inability to take an order over the phone). One of our guests had recently had an operation on their digestive system and wasn't able to eat anything spicy, and they opted for the Napoli pizza. Neither the restaurant's own online ordering page nor JustEats menu page listed anything spicy in the ingredients for this pizza so we thought it would be ok. The first bite told us this wasn't the case, as the pizza had chilli flakes on it (which I have since noticed are listed on the paper menus, but not on the ordering webpage). As a result, the pizza was wasted and we ended up having to make the remaining pizzas stretch between us instead. Again, these things happen, despite how irritating and embarrassing it was for us as it was for a guest of ours. So I emailed Pala with our feedback, mainly just so they could update their website and avoid this happening to anyone else. Well now 2 weeks have passed and I have received absolutely no reply from them and no changes have been made to the website. The pizzas are good (although Nonna Lucia are much more authentic and reasonably priced), but this business is massively let down by its appalling customer service. This is one more customer that won't be...

Went in for a mid week pizza for date night, went for the Calabria. When I got it, the pizza was covered in burnt flower on the bottom. Being British and not wanting to ruin date night, brushed it off as I ate. I was in that weird position as a customer where I wanted to send it back but if I did then my partners pizza was Goona be cold / eaten and it would have caused a scene. Which after a long stressful day didn’t want to end on a low. Not fair to put customers in the position really. The burnt flower made it like sand to eat and the base was crumbling as I ate and brushed off. At the end the plate was covered in sand. I let the lovely waitress know and she did make the effort to tell the chef. Their response was it was too much flower and burnt. I think for the price of £16 pounds a pizza, they could have made a good will gesture and gave me a slight discount but they didn’t. They thanked me for my feedback, but would have been nice to correct the situation. We also had a bruschetta starter, the dressing was nice and tomato’s fresh just the bread that it was on was really hard and dry. Would have scored higher if they put customers first as part of their service. Also a couple came in and they stuck them in this awful 2 table in the corner with no lights. There was table of 4 free but the waiting staff asked what looked liked the manager / owner and he said no to leave them and instead told them to put the cupboard light on that they were next to. Could see their faces squirm too. I think for the price and market they’re aiming towards could up their quality and customer...

The food is fantastic, but it's a shame the takeaway service is so unreliable. I'm writing this review after three consecutive bad experiences.

The last two times I ordered pizzas for takeaway, they weren’t ready on time, and I ended up waiting 30 minutes. On one occasion, I even got a parking ticket because of the delay—but that’s on me for parking where I shouldn’t have.

Today, I thought I’d plan ahead, so I gave them an extra 15 minutes past my collection time, knowing the pizzas wouldn’t be ready. When I arrived, I spoke to a waitress who said she would check with the kitchen. After watching her prepare cocktails for 10 minutes, I had to ask again. She reassured me she’d be with me in a second—only to ignore me for another 10 minutes, leaving the restaurant unattended.

Ironically, a friend of mine, a chef at a nearby restaurant, happened to be there too. After a total of 30 minutes, I finally got my pizzas.

Had she just apologised, I wouldn’t have minded at all. It’s such a shame because the pizzas...