Pizza Express - South Bucks

The food was good as expected but the service was as always terrible. They need a good manager! The staff were all stood around drinking and laughing. No rush to serve or clear tables. We were not asked if we wanted more drinks, if we had everything that we ordered, if our meals were ok. The kids weren’t offered pencils to do the activities on the menu. We had to ask for our table to be cleared so we could order dessert. Kitchen staff had to repeatedly ask for service as food was sitting waiting to be taken to customers. Very disappointed as the restaurant wasn’t busy the staff just need some organisation and delegation.

This is probably one of the worst dining out experiences I’ve had. It started well – we arrived at about 7.30 in the evening and were seated quite quickly (it was a quiet night and we were one of maybe 10 tables) and a high chair was brought over for our toddler. After a wait of about 15-20 minutes we placed our order and then we waited And waited And waited For over an hour. Finally our meal arrived – or rather, half of it did. My pizza came along with the toddler’s but my husband’s was nowhere in sight. I asked the waitress about it, who went over to the kitchen to investigate (which we were right next to, coincidentally). She returned to tell us the order for the missing pizza “hadn’t gone through” and was just being made. It should, she said, be with us in 5 minutes, which did raise questions about why we’d waited for the other 2 to arrive. In the meantime, I tucked into my Veneziana pizza. It was missing the olives, which normally I would have asked to be fixed but honestly I didn’t have another hour to wait. Other than that it was kind of fine, but net great and certainly not worth nearly £11. True to their word my husband’s pizza arrived after about five minutes, at which point I asked for the bill because it was now gone 9 and we wanted to get out of there relatively quickly to get to our destination before the middle of the night. The waitress said that was fine and off she went. And we waited Then we waited some more Then I saw her bring the bill to two other tables so on her way back past I asked her again for the bill. No problem, apparently. So we waited. And waited… I tried to catch her eye/attention as she came past but she blanked me about five times. Finally, I managed to get her attention again (by this time, we have all finished eating as well) and asked for the bill again – and I’m sure you can guess where this is going. Now I should say that I suspect we may have not been sitting in her area, but the waiter who originally seated us and took our order was nowhere to be seen throughout all of this. What’s more, at no point did she say it had to be her colleague who would deal with it, only that it’d be “no problem” or “of course” and so on. Back to the waiting. I’d got to the point where I was about to stand up and walk out – wondering whether to get some cash to leave on the table first or just make a bit of a show of ‘leaving’ so the bill and card machine arrive – when as if by magic, the guy who originally seated us and took our order turns up with the bill in hand. I stopped him from leaving because I honestly had maxed out the amount of waiting one person could reasonably do and didn’t trust he’d be back quickly, if ever. The bill was correct and, thankfully, no service charge was added so I didn’t have to ask for it to be taken off. So we were able to get the card machine out, pay and leave pretty quickly. It was, by now, just after 9.30pm. You may think the story would end there, but it doesn’t. Because the following day all three of us were visited by the ‘dodgy stomach fairy’. Could it have been something else we ate? Well no because when it struck me, I hadn’t eaten anything since the previous night and it was the only thing that all of us ate the same thing of. Thankfully, it was a brief encounter but all this is to say I will absolutely never eat there again (and I go past there frequently enough for it to be a relatively regular possibility), I advise others don’t either, and it’s put me off Pizza Express as an option for eating out possibly forever. 0/10, would not recommend.

I visited the Pizza Express at the services on the M40 Junction 2 Beaconsfield for evening meal as I was staying at the Ibis Hotel on site. The food was typical Pizza Express and very enjoyable. Staying in the hotel qualified for a discount. The staff were friendly and helpful. Nice place to have a formal meal as alternative to the Wetherspoons.

I was very disappointed in the new Pizza Express here I ate there on a recommendation but my penne bolognese was burnt black (not sure how you can burn pasta black charred) and the pizza was only mediocre (soggy bottom) I felt sorry for the waiter to whose notice I brought the matter as he reported it to the manager (Mahmoud) who passed back the message and apologised but offered us a free cup of tea or coffee. We did not want a tea or coffee as we wanted to get on our way but said that in our opinion he was letting down the Pizza Express brand by serving such food We paid our full bill and left. They have obviously invested a lot in this site but they weren't that busy and the manager must remember that his customers may be travellers taking a break for a food stop but he must not serve bad food. I would that my first visit here with my wife was much better and what I would expect.

For a restaurant at a service station we were surprised how good it was. The pizzas were good quality and the service was good