PizzaExpress — Restaurant in Tandridge

Having not visited Pizza Express for probably 18 months because of the pandemic, we were very disappointed to find the staff at Caterham neither particularly welcoming nor friendly. Nobody was rude, but it was all very matter of fact.

Pizza Express restaurants have a reputation for being very noisy venues, possibly because of all the hard surfaces (ask anyone and they'll agree you can't usually hear yourself think) but we know that, so it's our choice to go there or not. This doesn't help conversations with the waiting staff, but my recollection is they're typically friendly/chatty and helpful. Our experience on Saturday 5th June was not like this at all.

For us, a restaurant is not somewhere we go only to eat and leave - that's what the fast-food outlets are for. For us it's a destination, somewhere to relax and to enjoy good food and drink with your friends or family. But, if the staff isn't interested in our spending time and, as a consequence, more money in their restaurant, then why should we be?

Given how long restaurants have been closed because of the pandemic, I would have thought it would be the highest possible priority for every restaurant/hospitality venue owner/manager to ensure its staff is delivering the best possible customer experience to make the customers feel like they've been missed and are welcomed back so they want to return.

As Pizza Express Caterham doesn't appear to have that mindset, there are plenty of other venues locally who have (such as the excellent Bell Inn in Godstone), so it's extremely unlikely we'll be returning to...

Booked a table for 8pm on a Tuesday night. Arrived at Caterham Pizza Express and were told by a very busy owner that food would not be served for at least 45 mins because they had too many delivery orders to deal with and only 3 staff serving. So people who were sitting in the restaurant had to wait in turn for their food to be made. Ridiculous system- they should have a dedicated team for dealing with deliveries. You make the effort to turn up to eat at a restaurant where you are not the priority- it’s a waste of time. And you wouldn’t know the situation until you get there so how do you know when they will be busy or not? Perhaps they should stop taking online table bookings when it is that busy. We decided not to add to their burdens- we didn’t mind the wait but the staff were so stressed out that we didn’t want to be in that kind of atmosphere all evening. We went to the Indian down the road instead and had a lovely meal. Sorry guys- we come here regularly and it’s not the first time we have had a poor experience, but this just felt like our custom...

Won't be visiting again. Even if it's free.

Place was only a third full, but service was terrible. Starters unimpressive. Main course arrived for my gf - pasta that had been obviously microwaved (penne that was tough at the ends), mine turned up 15 minutes later once I'd asked out loud where my meal had gotten to as our waiter had disappeared. We also got sat next to the deliveries hatch - complete with doorbell - lovely.

In short, £63 for food that my children could have prepared better, and a waiter that could totally GAF - to the point of 'forgetitng' further drinks we'd ordered (to cope with the food). We ended up having to pay at the counter because we asked for the bill and.....and again, nobody cared.

Used to be a fantastic place. Not any more. Avoid like the plague.

Now look at the manager responding to poor reviews over and over with the same generic waffle. Wake up mate, do something with your restaurant instead of assuming that any reply on...