PizzaExpress — Restaurant in Exeter

Review written by my 12 year old son. This was the worst dining experience of my life. Firstly, when we arrived it was impossible to sit in two of the four seats at our table without climbing over or crawling under the table. We were shown to another table where it was possible to sit and promptly ordered. Half an hour later, our drinks arrived. One hour later, our starters arrived. They were mediocre despite the long wait - the chilli prawns were watery, the mozzarella greasy and the calamari burnt. One hour and forty five minutes later, our pizzas arrived. The service was ridiculously slow and staff were dismissive of our concerns for how long we had to wait - pizza EXPRESS it certainly wasn't! If you have any experience, any experience at all of making pizza from scratch, it takes about 30-45 minutes. Here they have the dough prepared and they probably started it before our starters arrived so it probably should have taken them about 20 minutes to cook the pizza. When the pizza eventually arrived was of them was barely cooked - raw dough, cold/uncooked tomato, cheese barely melted - after an hour and three quarters of waiting this term was unacceptable. We were not the only disgruntled customers. What happened next really irritated us. Almost all the waiters were young and to send them forward to deal with unhappy customers was unfair - management should have been dealing with the issues. We did get a refund on the raw pizza but the lack if concern, apoligy or any sort of customer service really was appalling. Seriously, save yourself the trauma of coming here. Unless your starting a restaurant and want to see how not to do things STAY AWAY! Pour young employees, really feel for them. This is a genuinely terrible place to go for pizza - find another chain or an independent...

Went for a meal out Saturday night and was a very stressful experience. The manager was so rude to her staff behind the line in front of customers and her tone was very condescending and belittling . Was horrid to watch whilst trying to enjoy a meal after a long day at work. Was asked 3 times if I wanted to move tables which I was seated at and each time I said I was fine . Was very intrusive and then to be approached again asking for our booking when w had already been sat down for 10 minutes .2 of our drink orders were incorrect. Serving me alcoholic drink instead of non alcoholic. Whilst eating downstairs the room was full of fruit flies which one went into my drink and luckily saw it before I drank it but put me off my food and drink. Our mains were given to use when we hadn't finished our starter . Manager knocking on the window calling out to staff to finish their break and then complaining to customer that they are always late off their breaks. Not professional at all. She was extremely loud and blaming her staff for things that were wrong when it was clearly her lack of management skills that was the problem. I felt sorry for the staff. I would have walked out if I was spoken to so appalling by a manager. Bless the staff looked so unhappy but tried their best with out service .

Best to avoid worse dinner...

Sadly we had a very poor experience in PE Exeter last night (Thurs 16th Jan). We arrived without a booking at 5.15pm and asked for a table for two. The restaurant was totally empty yet we were made to wait for the waiter to ask his manager if there were any tables free. I asked for the table in the window but was told I could only have the choice of two tables despite being the only diners in the restaurant. We proceeded to have a drink and order our food. We had two Romana pizzas, both of which were overcooked (blackened crust and tough chewy base) and probably the worst pizzas we have had from a Pizza Express restaurant. To top things off, our plates were cleared and bill presented to us straight away, not having asked for it. We politely paid and left (the table I requested was still vacant at the time of leaving - 6.45pm) but found the whole experience poor. The guy that met us at the door and brought our bill was called Oscar, yet we received good service from Lucien throughout. Oscar was rude and unwelcoming and could do with understanding he works in a service industry and his attitude towards us last night could well explain why your restaurant is so quiet. My family have enjoyed dining at PE for the last 20 years and this was the worst experience we have had...