Southside Pizza & Pub — Restaurant in Columbia

Will not be coming back.

Walking in, the concept was confusing. European decor with country music and a guy in Cowboy hat greeted us after waiting to be seated for nearly 3 minutes. There were only 4 tables of people in this huge building on a Saturday afternoon.

They seated us in a booth, as requested. The sweet tea tasted like apple juice, for some reason. Egg rolls were the best part, even though they seemed store bought quality, they were average. We also ordered the Philly Steak Pizza. I will say that the crust was cooked well and the ingredients looked well put together. Sadly, it was the blandest pizza we've ever tried. Absolutely zero salt, seasoning, or sauce. The wait staff took just shy of 10 minutes to greet our table to ask what we wanted to drink. Again, there were only 5 tables (including us) in this whole restaurant, that had people in them on a Saturday around lunch. Not at all busy, but they took their time. Our server was MIA nearly the entire meal. We couldn't even ask for salt. The bartender at the front blew a big vape cloud from behind the bar with guests sitting less than 10 feet away. Pretty sure that's a food safety violation. My wife and I both had to separately go to the front and wait for service to ask for to go boxes, and then the ticket. Another waitress gave us a cup for the broccoli soup with a lid that didn't even fit the soup. Again, we go to the front and I have our server try to fit the lid and he couldn't even do it. The broccoli soup was watery and our baby is not a picky eater and could hardly eat it. Wanted to like this place but there were way too many negatives. In a college town with pizza places like Pappo's and Arris on the same corner, this place won't last competitively. Do better and care about your job...

Full disclosure here, their food is actually quite tasty--it's perfectly adequate pizza and bar food of the fried variety. However, what makes me give them a low review score is their TERRIBLE SERVICE.

The bad service started when our food was delivered: I asked our waitress for some hot sauce for my chicken wings, along with another beer. After about 20 minutes, she finally brought the beer but no hot sauce, then scurried away without asking if our table needed anything else. We saw her maybe once or twice over the next 30-40 minutes and I tried to flag her down with a wave, but she either ignored me or simply didn't see me each time.

After ~40 minutes, she still hadn't stopped back by our table, so I finally went up to the register and asked the older lady standing there; she got it for me immediately. Shortly after this, the waitress finally brought my friends their pizza (ordered at the same time as my hot sauce btw), but no plates, napkins, or Parmesan. Again, she scurried off immediately without asking if we needed anything else. After ANOTHER 20 min, the waitress FINALLY comes back to ask if we need anything.

It was just seriously inattentive, terrible service all night long except when I got stuff for myself. The entire time we were there, our waitress only had 4-5 tables max at any given time, and sometimes she only had my table +1 other. Our group (6 or 7 people) was easily the largest table she had, yet she would disappear for long stretches at a time for no discernible reason and we were forced to serve ourselves. It's not like we were incapable of doing this, but what's the point of having waiters/waitresses if they're not actually going to serve...

DO NOT BRING YOUR CHILDREN HERE. My husband and I took our kids to south side last night and were VERY disappointed in our experience. We were there from 7-8ish, so normal dinner time. We had heard that it was a family owned pizza place and that they had trivia night on Tuesdays. We went in expecting a family friendly atmosphere and that was not the case at all. When we sat down our server told us the specials which were all alcohol. We had to ask her to bring menus, which should be expected at a RESTURAUNT around dinner time. They didn't have any of the drinks the kids wanted (apple juice, root beer) and the only types of juice they had were alcohol mixers. They didn't even have lids for the cups (I mean what the heck!!!! If you serve food at your establishment you should be prepared for children to come in.) The music was so loud we could barely hear each other talk and on top of that it was very explicit. I asked our server to change it to something that wasn't cussing every other word and she said there was a juke box and she couldn't change it because that's what the other customers were requesting. It's not appropriate to play music like that in a public place with children during normal dining hours. I asked our server to turn it down at least, which she did but just barely. About 15 minutes later it was turned back up apparently by the owners request. I guess we learned our lesson about the atmosphere of the place, but they should really be advertising as a bar rather than a pizza restaurant (hardly any of the other tables around us even ordered food, just pitchers of alcohol and shots) so that other people don't make the mistake of exposing their kids...