Appalling service at Piza-e-Vino

My family and I met a good friend of mine (and her family) at Piza-e-Vino in Melrose Arch on Wednesday evening this week. I really wish we hadn't. "Terrible" is an understatement to describe the evening. It certainly goes down as one of the worst evenings out that I have ever had! We chose Pize-e-Vino as I know it well having recently moved from Fourways. We used to go to the Paulshof restaurant quite often. We have just moved to Bedfordview and we met a friend who was celebrating her birthday. We were 4 adults and 4 children. We arrived at the restaurant at 7 pm. It was extremely busy and my gut told me that this was going to be a long evening (judging by the number of people seated in the restaurant). I should have listened to my gut! We sat down and that is when the crazy fun started. We ordered cold drinks for the children and a bottle of wine for the adults. In fact, let me re-phrase that. We finally ordered drinks after 10 minutes when a waiter noticed that we had in fact actually arrived. I can't believe that I am typing this but we received the wine at 7.45 pm. No, I am not joking, 7.45 pm! That is 45 minutes after we arrived. The best part however is that our children still had no cold drinks. In which restaurant on planet earth do you wait 45 minutes for a drink and your children still have no service after 45 minutes? May I remind you that we are talking about Melrose Arch here. We chose to dine out in an upmarket area as we thought it would be a treat. What a laugh! It was also a halfway meeting point between Bedfordview and Fourways (where the 2 families each live). It gets worse. Yes, it really does. It really goes downhill now. We of course asked politely (a few times) for the wine. When it arrived it was hot (not warm let alone cool) and there was no ice. We waited 15 minutes for ice. I had my first sip of a drink 1 hour after I arrived in the restaurant. I wonder if the owners of Pize-e-Vino would wait that long when they go out to eat? We had to pester another waitress to bring us ice which we eventually received at gone 8 pm. Our children received their cold drinks one hour after we arrived. The only reason we did not leave this poor excuse for a restaurant is that we were catching up with a friend and her mother (who is in her 70's) and we didn't want to uproot her to another restaurant. Looking back, we should have. We should have run! That would have been less stressful. We looked around the restaurant to see angry faces, hands raised looking for assistance, and miserable people. The 2 tables right next to us were complaining that they were starved and that their children could not wait any longer. Everyone was seething. If I had to advertise my restaurant as per my review here - would you visit it? Never! It was a joke. in fact, it was beyond a joke. It has been a lousy 2020 due to Covid, eating out is expensive and a treat. All you expect when you go out is a decent service and a good meal. Is that too much to ask? I could have made a quicker pizza at home. I do not mind waiting and I very rarely complain. I do not like complaining in restaurants. However, my fiance who literally never complains and is extremely polite, kind, and full of patience was disgusted. He is in the service industry for a network service provider so he knows about providing good service. No matter how many times we asked for service, help, our food - it fell on deaf ears. They had simply let too many customers in and they did not have the resources/waiters to assist. The evening rapidly fell apart. Let's just say that we received our food at 9.10 pm - a mere 2 hours and 10 minutes after we arrived. Need I remind you that this is just pizza - not a 7-course meal. My fiance and I were sharing a pizza. Well surprise, surprise - it never arrived. They forgot that. That arrived at gone 9.30 pm when everyone else had finished eating. What was meant to be a lovely evening was an absolute disaster and a disgrace to the Pize-e-Vino chain. It was annoying, frustrating, pathetic, embarrassing to the restaurant, ridiculous, stressful, and really just a bit of a bad joke. I have had some bad service but nothing like this. We finally complained to a manager who said he was one of 5 managers. I actually laughed. 5 Managers! They had more managers than waiters. To be honest, he was useless and he was also in a panic. He needs to be trained on how to handle panic and stressful situations. At one stage our entire table had both hands up waving to get a waiter's attention. We still never had anyone see us. Come on, guys. It is disgusting. I went to the wine wrack myself the second time to fetch my own wine because I could not get a waiter to bring me a bottle. I think I may not be the first person to have tried this as all the bottles were empty. Hmmmmmm, methinks a few people may have tried to help themselves as there is no service. At the end of the evening, I walked downstairs (for the 5th time) and I asked for another manager. Peter Mthembu was the only decent thing that happened that night. He came over, he apologized profusely, he said it was everyone's fault - the staff, the waiters, the management. He admitted that they let too many customers in rather than lose them to the competition and he understood us completely. Relief! I finally felt calm. At last, someone who knows how to deal with people. He is an asset. They need more Peters! I would hire him. My fiance actually refused to pay. Peter said no problem. My fiance would rather have the ground eat him up than not pay for dinner. He is a proud man. I was bowled over that he refused. Do I blame him? Not at all. Why should we pay? It was an awful comedy of errors that I would never like to repeat again. My fiance said that when an owner calls us, after that discussion he will pay for the meal. I even said that if they do not call us then they do not care about their patrons and it is all about the revenue. Peter assured us that someone would call us on Thursday and that they do care. Guess what - no one has called. Peter said we would not have to pay and that someone would take us for a meal on the house. We explained that this is not necessary. We don't want that. We do not want to go back - like ever. The point was they need to lift their game. I heard the 2 tables next to me tell the waiters that there will not be the next time. I felt sorry for our waiter. He was run off his feet. He didn't let the people in - I don't believe it was his fault. I don't really care whose fault it was. We were all livid. You can never get time back. The evening is gone, the time was wasted. That's it. We have moved on already. I can tell you, however (and I am pretty sure that you can guess) - we will not be going back to this Pize-e-Vino or any other Pize-e-Vino ever, ever again. I have had a better evening at Mimos!