Primanti Bros. Restaurant and Bar — Restaurant in Arbutus

It pains me to write this, as I love Primanti Bros. I grew up in Pittsburgh, and have eaten at many of the locations around the city all through my adolescence and young adulthood. Ive never had a bad experience with staff or service in my years of patronage, but unfortunately that has come to an end this past month at this location. Tonight in particular was bad, as I was berated and questioned in a condescending manor by the manager while trying to resolve a billing issues from 2 days before.

Thursdays are buy one-get-one pizza days, and my party and I came in and ordered the 2 of the custom pizzas that included 3 toppings and go for $19.99. The waitress bills me for about $24/25, which I then ask how the bill turned out to be more for the pizzas. She points out that the 3 toppings for the pizza costed $1.99 each, and the pizza itself costed $17.99 (I list these numbers out because its important later). I believe here the misunderstanding happens, as the waitress inputted a cheese pizza + additional toppings on top which would be charged. She assures me she'll remedy this and goes to a manager to have the bill corrected. She returns a bit later and hands me a new corrected bill, and says that my bill on my billing statement should be corrected once it processes. I check my statement today and it wasnt corrected, so I go to the restaurant to have it fixed. The manager comes out and I explain the situation. He goes back and prints the original receipt based on the invoice on my new one, but we learn that the hostess had actually given me the wrong new receipt- it was just my friend's bill, as our table had split up our bill 6 ways for all that we ordered.

This is where things take a turn, as I try to explain to this man that I had ordered and want to pay for the $19.99 pizza, but what was clearly incorrect on the receipt breakdown was that it was inputted in as a $17.99 cheese pizza with $1.99x3 additional charges for extra toppings. The manager goes on to question my pizza ordering logic, asking me "What does a pizza start as?" A cheese pizza- then you add toppings and you pay for each. They are not free. Thats how it works at Dominoes and every other place." We go back and forth as I try to make it clear that I didnt order a cheese pizza, I ordered the custom $19.99 pizza, pointing to its place on the menu where it literally says "Includes 3 toppings." He's heated and tells me thats not how it works, toppings arent free, and I respond telling him that it doesnt make sense that this says 'includes' but then the toppings are charged extra at the end of it. He goes on to tell me "I dont understand what you arent understanding about this", which is a ridiculous thing to say when Im just trying to make clear my intentions and get my billing right. He then says I didnt even have the correct new receipt anyways and that I had my friends, which isnt even relevant to the issue as he has my printed receipt with the pizza bills in his hands. He then rudely rebuttals to me "lets do the math, if you had done the $17.99 pizza, if you include tax then that is about a $4 difference over your original bill. You're making a big deal over $4? Im not going to argue with you over that." He takes out his wallet, and has the bartender break cash and puts $4 on the table and tells me that we're square. Ive never managed a business or restaurant before but I find it insane that this is how he chose to approach my issue- at the end of the day I got overcharged, whether its $4 or $44, and the principle there is for it to be made right. Instead, I had my pizza-ordering logic questioned (???), I was told I was making a big deal over $4, and the big man made a show over it by putting his own money down to make a point. I never got his name but the management here is condescending and rude. I believe the general staff and establishment is doing its best, but this is not how you treat your customers or resolve...

We had high hopes for this places. To start off we were put on a wait list which was totally fine. They called us told us our table was ready when in fact it was not we asked the three people at the front about how much longer we were told they did not know because it was waiting to be busted down. Ok…. So there are three of you including a manager at the front not doing anything and you can not help your staff who are clearly struggling to keep up. Finally after another 25 mins we were seated our waitress was super sweet but clearly over worked and struggling to keep up. Again the manager is seeing this happen and is doing nothing to support his staff. We were a group of 6 and was seated behind a large group who stated they had been there for almost three hours drinking. Maybe when you all are slammed you should put a cap on how long someone can sit as you clearly had an almost two hour wait. Our poor waitress kept forgetting our non alcoholic drinks and was more focused on the large table who was drinking because it was happy hour. Finally our food arrived my burger arrived pink and cold along with my husband burger who was also pink and my sister in law cheese stake was ice cold with hard burnt bread. My sister in law finally had to get up and tell the manager maybe he should help his staff because they are struggling. We did not complain because we just felt so bad for our waitress and if that was me I would of walked out because no one deserves to run around with their head chopped off while their main support person is just standing there. Shame on that manager. I definitely do not recommend this place till they actually get some decent staff (management) in there to support their staff and actually help and come up with a...

Atmosphere: 2/10 The restaurant was clean and looked good. However, one of the employees was kind of aggressive, yelling and mumbling to himself. He was also instigating with other workers, which was kind of weird. I get the sports bar vibe, but the guy was screaming at max volume and swearing at the screen when there were only about 5 people in the restaurant.

Service: The server was fantastic—very friendly and nice. They made sure we had refills and provided exactly the service you would expect. 10/10

Food we had:

Pretzel: Had a ridiculous amount of salt. We had to take about 80% of it off, but once we did, it was good. It couldn’t be eaten with that much salt. 5/10

Nachos: Actually pretty decent. 7/10

PB Reuben: It was pretty bad. I’ve had it before, but this time it seemed to be a skill issue at this specific location. The fries were old, the bread seemed almost stale, and the meat was not spread out at all, so it was just a ball in the middle. 2/10

Pitts-Burger and Cheese: This was awful. The burger was past well done, the bread was cold, and again, the fries were old and gross. It was literally the worst burger I’ve ever had. The meat patty was like a rock got cut in half. 2/10. The only reason it gets a 2 is because, from what I could tell, everything here was clean and safe to eat.

End notes: Probably won't ever come back to this specific location. Others have been good so it's definatley a problem with this location. If I got a giftcard here I would give it away vs getting a free meal here. I'll watch the review for a while and if they get better I might give it a try again. Most likely based on how dead it was I'd give this place a year in it's...