Leah Simpson
Google
I don’t usually leave reviews but I wanted to share in hopes the establishment thinks more carefully about their treatment of all paying customers— not just incoming ones.
My friends and I spent $15 on 3 slices today, which is already pricey— but is what it is. The pizza was good and everyone seemed genuinely kind service-wise;
but only very shortly after us taking our last bites, one of the employees came to alert us that she needed our table because guests had just come in and “one of them had a baby”.
My friends and I were accommodating and we did leave— but it was very weird to be asked to vacate after having not having been there for even 25mins by that point (the pizza came out quickly and it didn’t take us long to eat a slice each). It was even weirder because there was outside seating and another table that would’ve fit the other guests (even though it likely wouldn’t have been as comfortable as the table they’d sat us at)
Like I said, I don’t usually leave reviews— but this experience left a bad taste in our mouths. Why would it be on us as paying guests, having not been in the restaurant that long, to, at that time, consider arriving guests?
Why wouldn’t the restaurant figure out how to better accommodate all the guests by shifting the tables behind us to seat the arrivals or offering them to sit outside?
Or, why wouldn’t they just advise them to wait— just as many of us have to do at many places in Newbury when it’s busy in the late afternoon?
It was weird to me that the employee noted that the arriving guests had a baby as though we should for some reason be more inclined to give up our seats because they’d be more in need or desperate for one but .. nobody needs Union pizza. They, like us, are enjoying Newbury street and they, like us, may have had to wait or shift plans and that simply would not have been the end of the world.
It was a small event but it did make me averse to visiting here again because having time-limits is reasonable but, not only is nothing like that marked— but we would have been no where near passing it given the brief time we’d been there and the fact that we’d just finished eating and were chatting as we waited for our ride— even considering getting another slice.
In short, I realize my review is merely a dime in a bucket, and you may be tempted to dismiss it as such. But the business really should consider how they come off in moments like these if they want to be impressive and equitable to all guests. They shouldn’t be afraid to suggest that a guest may have to wait if there are some who’ve already paid and are seated— as is customary for food establishments.
If we were critics or something of the sort they’d likely take a hit on something like that; which would be so unfortunate because it otherwise seems to be a pretty fair establishment.
