Village Idiot Pizza — Restaurant in Columbia

I struggled to think of a reason to give Village Idiot in Five Points more than one star-- really, I tried very hard. But last night, what should have been a pleasant night of an appetizer, a couple of rounds of drinks, and pizza by the slice quickly turned into a frustrating nightmare for my boyfriend and me. We arrived before 6:30 PM, and despite it being happy hour, the place was mostly empty. We ordered a round of drinks and a plate of wing chips to share, making the waitress aware that we had plans to order pizza, too, but weren't quite sure what we wanted yet. I don't know how long other people take to decide what kind of pizza they want, but she then proceeded to disappear long enough for us to finish our drinks and our appetizer, which continued to sit unattended as the place filled up around us. Patrons who had arrived after we did came and went, and the tables of young men ordering a dozen or so beers didn't seem to lack for attention, but our service continued to be poor. It took twenty minutes, minimum, before we were able to flag down our waitress and put in our pizza order. Mind you, we ordered by the slice, so we weren't expecting our uncomplicated order to take the half hour that it did. During that time, the waitress stopped by our table a grand total of once. After the interminable wait, we were given our pizza, which arrived at our table lukewarm and ludicrously undercooked-- it was a floppy, paper-thin mess, which I was not at all expecting given that my boyfriend had recounted past positive experiences. If, as the waitress led us to believe, our wait was due to a rush and shortage of pizza (which seems unlikely), it could have at the very least arrived hot. Furthermore, my boyfriend's order was incorrect, and when he flagged down the waitress, she seemed to be already aware that the order was incorrect, but had obviously done nothing about it. She paused only long enough to promise a new slice and then promptly disappeared for another ten minutes, rather than listen to my boyfriend's request that she forget about the pizza and to please bring our check, as we had another engagement after dinner and didn't want to be kept waiting. When she brought back the correct order, we had already given up on the other pizza-- which was, frankly, inedible-- and he immediately handed her his card so that we could leave. When the bill arrived, we were appalled to discover that due to our waitress's inattentiveness, we hadn't been able to put in our order before 7 PM, when happy hour ended, and therefore were excluded from the special. As someone who has worked in food service and retail management for years, I found this treatment to be shocking, especially in the south. What should have been a pleasant hour-long experience was a two-hour exercise in hunger and frustration. We were made to feel as though our business was less valuable than that of tables full of young men, and that we were prioritized below tables that had coming after us; not a great feeling. In making future plans I would love not to count Village Idiot out, but my experience last night leaves me skeptical, to...

While the pizza is alright, the management certainly lives up to the establishment 's name. Three of my coworkers and I visted the 5 Points location this past Friday, April 15. We ordered and visited the juke box. After putting OVER $25 in it, we were told that our music was inappropriate. Imagine my shock-my eclectic playlist that ranged from Queen to Fetty Wap to Johnny Cash to Drake to Beyonce to FOB and back again was inappropriate for a bar in 5 Points! They promptly turned the jukebox off...and played Linkin Park. The manager gave us some weak excuse about this 5 Points bar in the midst of happy hour being a "family establishment" despite the lack of any families being present, the jukebox only playing editted versions, the fact that it was their jukebox, and the playlist being not exclusively rap (as if that was even relevant ). Needless to say, we left after tipping our poor server quite well (since this idiocy was not her fault) and spent our time and money at a different establishment a couple of doors down that had a much more welcoming...

Will not be returning. Arrived with a group of 3 others to get a round of drinks and some pizza and we were there for an hr and a half despite it being mostly empty. Sat down and a lady came and got our drink orders for water only to walk away before we could say what we wanted to eat and our ACTUAL drink orders. Ten minute later she comes back with our drinks and still never gets our food orders. I see her rolling silverware on the side so I go up and say we’re ready to order only to have her say she’s not our server and our server will get our food order. Well — our server never came so she actually wound up getting our order. Our 2 pizzas (small and large) took 45 minutes to come out and the only time we saw our actual server was when she dropped off the food we had to flag her down for everything else. The time spent here wouldn’t be such an issue except for the fact that they were not busy, and most of the staff was seen talking and laughing with each other, sitting down, and even drinking beer in the corner. Terrible service for...