"If anyone who has had pizza in Italy will know, pizza is supposed to be something that is thrown together in a minute or two and then is baked in a large hot oven in just a few more minutes, with the pizza chef juggling...the pizzas in the oven so that they come out in the order put in, nicely done. A busy pizzeria will have a large enough oven to bake half a dozen pizzas at the same time. I assumed that Pizza Express would be run on the same lines the clue is in its name. It's a while since I'd been to a Pizza Express and when I sat down and saw that the prices were higher than the small local places I'd normally go to in London I nevertheless thought it's worth paying extra for a premium product and anyway we were on holiday' on a day out to visit Leeds. We arrived at about last Thursday and after pondering the menu for a few minutes elected to share a large rectangular pizza and put in our order. There were quite a few people, including a party of young squaddies presumably connected with the nearby Armouries. We had no timetable, no business meeting to run off to, so were were fairly relaxed about the time, but after more than minutes waiting and not seeing much activity we weren't in direct sight of the pizza chef, but didn't see much sign of other people being served very often, and nearby tables where people had finished remained uncleared we called over a waiter. He went off to enquire, returning with an assurance our pizza would arrive in minutes, maximum. minutes later our pizza did arrive, and first impression was good nice and colourful and neatly laid out until we noticed that all the raised parts of the crust were burnt black, the crusty parts that I normally particularly like. Given the price I didn't reckon we should have to pick and choose which parts we could eat and which to discard so we called the waiter over and said we wanted to send it back, untouched. He apologised profusely and said he'd get it quickly replaced and would adjust the price. We carried on chatting. Looking at the clock a while later I realised another minutes had passed and no replacement pizza. This time I got up and went over to the counter and asked after our replacement pizza. The waiter who later said he was the person in charge that day went over to the young pizza chef, who was busy preparing a round pizza, and asked about our pizza. The pizza chef looked non-plussed. The waiter reminded him that it was the one that had got burnt and the pizza chef still seemed to know nothing about it. I protested and said that this was terrible service. The waiter/duty manager once more apologised profusely and explained that they only had one trainee pizza chef on duty. I could see that there were only two waiters, making a total of three staff. He asked if there was anything he could give us on the house to make up for it, but I couldn't think of anything and by this time we were getting pretty hungry so I said we would go and find somewhere else. I did express some sympathy with his lack of staff as in the end I blame the organisation for not ensuring that it had adequately trained and adequate numbers of staff on duty I assumed, possibly wrongly, that it was not his decision to have only one trainee pizza chef on duty. However, there was no excuse for not ensuring a replacement pizza was promptly provided once the burnt one was brought to the his attention and as they must have known all along that they had delay problems customers should have been asked on ordering if a wait of over half an hour would be OK. We took a bus into town and found a small Chinese restaurant not far from the bus station called Noodle House. After ordering I said to my wife I'll time how long it will take. After three minutes the first dish arrived. One minute later the second dish arrived. I counted five staff behind the counter. If a large chain with a famous brand name can only afford' to employ three staff then I think they are taking the mickey."
