Date of reservation: Friday 13th May

Having visited Portobello Pizzeria a number of times over the last year, I was excited to suggest to my friend that I take her for a delicious pizza and a bottle of wine after work on Friday.

I made the reservation for 6:45pm and we were seated in doors (I was not told that outdoor seating was available at the time of booking, which was a shame).

After just a couple of minutes the waiter came to take our wine order – we thought this was very quick and felt a little hurried.

Very shortly afterwards the waiter returned to take our food order. We apologied and said that we hadn't yet had a chance to look as we'd just ordered the wine. The waiter immediately informed us that the table will be required back within the hour. This left us feeling hurried and unwelcome. My friend said she wanted to leave as she did not want to spend money dining in a restaurant which clearly doesn't value the patrons.

Two minutes later another waiter arrived at our table to take our order, by which time we felt very uncomfortable. I informed the waiter that we wanted to leave now as we felt so unwelcome and hurried. The waiter was apologetic and said he would give us a little longer to look at the menu.

After 5 minutes we ordered and our dinner arrived in a timely manner. It was delicious just as I had promised my friend. My friend enjoyed a pasta dish but admitted to food envy when my calzone arrived!
We decided to stay for dessert as we still had 10 minutes before our hour cut-off (a hiddeous situation) and decided to share a chocolate ice cream.

When the bill arrived we noticed a service charge had be added. Under normal circumstances we would be more than happy to pay this service charge and more often than not we top it up but rounding our bill up, but on this occasion we took exception to this addition.
We politely explained to the waiter that we didn't want to pay the service charge, to which he was clearly put out by that and walked away without… More