Pizza Hut, St Austell

...St Austell. There is a Pizza Hut in Truro and a Pizza Hut in St Austell, we have visited the Truro restaurant many times and we have never had a problem with any aspect of the establishment. However we have recently started going to the St Austell eatery, some things are great and some things are not so great.

Let's start with a little history of Pizza Hut. The very first Pizza Hut was opened in 1958 in Kansas by Frank and Dan Carney. ...
...characters, they wanted to include PIZZA in the name, and so PIZZA HUT was born. It took 15 years for Pizza Hut to make it to the United Kingdom. Today, Pizza Hut are the largest Pizza company in the world, there are 600 restaurants in Great Britain alone, many of which are franchises.
For the full Pizza Hut story visit http://www.pizzahut.co.uk/restaurant/history.html

I have visited the St Austell branch of Pizza Hut several ... more

I live in Cornwall. I used to live on the north coast, near Redruth, however my boyfriend and I now live between Truro and St Austell. There is a Pizza Hut in Truro and a Pizza Hut in St Austell, we have visited the Truro restaurant many times and we have never had a problem with any aspect of the establishment. However we have recently started going to the St Austell eatery, some things are great and some things are not so great.

Let's start with a little history of Pizza Hut. The very first Pizza Hut was opened in 1958 in Kansas by Frank and Dan Carney. The original restaurant was small, with only 25 seats, the sign was small, with only enough room for nine characters, they wanted to include PIZZA in the name, and so PIZZA HUT was born. It took 15 years for Pizza Hut to make it to the United Kingdom. Today, Pizza Hut are the largest Pizza company in the world, there are 600 restaurants in Great Britain alone, many of which are franchises.
For the full Pizza Hut story visit http://www.pizzahut.co.uk/restaurant/history.html

I have visited the St Austell branch of Pizza Hut several times, I have never eaten in the restaurant, so I cannot comment on this, but I have had takeaways many times. My boyfriend and I had a meal deal several times, this included a large pizza, three side orders and a 2 litre bottle of pop. This cost us £15.99, or £17.68 if we chose to have a "Cheesy BitesÓ" pizza, which comes with a tangy tomato dip that is very delicious. We had always experienced good customer service and short waiting times, we were very pleased with the service that we received. We thought we'd go back time and again until last week.
Last Wednesday a friend of mine came over, we went to the beach and our way home we decided to stop off at Pizza Hut which was on our way back to my house. When we arrived at the restaurant there was a few people on benches inside the doors, the restaurant didn't seem busy and the takeaway cashier was serving someone. There was only one leaflet menu, so we had to wait a while before we could decide what we wanted. When the cashier was finished serving the couple in front of us he disappeared leaving us standing at the ordering window. When another member of staff came to the till we explained that we wanted a meal deal, we were then told that the meal deals, which were advertised in the restaurant, were no longer available as they were currently in the process of changing their menus. When we looked on the leaflet, at the tiny print near the bottom, it was stated that the advertised menu expired in mid July, we were not too pleased to be looking at this leaflet at the end of August. Now I understand that it can take time to change the menus in an establishment as large as Pizza Hut, but two months?! Come on!!! This aside we chose to order all the constituents of the meal deal for their full price.
My boyfriend was waiting in the car had asked for a small drink, we asked if we could have this rather than the 2 litre bottle of drink we would have ordered with the meal deal. We were told that they didn't do this for takeaways, so we settled for the 2 litre bottle of Pepsi. My friend paid by card which caused a lot of trouble, as they could not get their chip reader to work, meaning my friend was forced to sign. We then asked if we could have our bottle of drink, only to be told we hadn't ordered or paid for one, which we believed we had, we decided to use cash, given the poor state of their card machine. The drink cost £1.99, paying with a fiver we received £3.00 change as the till's float was insufficient.
We were told to expect a fifteen minute wait, this didn't seem too bad and it seemed to make up for all the other problems. My friend and I went out to the car and explained all the problems to my boyfriend. After about twenty minutes we went back to collect our meal, we were told it was not ready and that it would be ready in a few minutes. Okay, maybe something went a bit wrong, I could understand a few more minutes, but sadly we were left waiting a further twenty minutes. We then approached a senior member of staff and explained the situation, he went to the kitchen and said our food would be "two minutes", he then went to reprimand the original cashier. The senior staff member continued to check when our food would be ready. Whilst we were waiting several parties came in looking for a table and were turned away as the obviously vacant tables were apparently reserved. This seemed absurd given that this was a fast food restaurant?!
When he gave us all the boxes we were careful to check everything that we had ordered as we were not going to have another disaster.
This sort of service was even more of a shock as we have some friends who work at the Truro Pizza Hut and they have told me that staff at Truro sometimes cover shifts at St Austell and vice versa. This is very odd because the service at Truro is always first-rate while the service at St Austell is positively ghastly.

We ordered two large pizzas, with "Cheesy BitesÓ", one with the Super Supreme topping and the other with the Chicken Supreme topping. Large pizzas come cut into eight slices. To add insult to injury the tomato dip which is advertised as accompanying the "Cheesy BitesÓ" Pizza was no where to be seen.
The Super Supreme combines spicy pork, pepperoni, spicy beef, mushrooms, whole black olives, ham slices, green peppers and red onions.
I think that this is a boy's pizza, I wasn't too keen on this topping. The meats were all very processed, which I suppose is necessary in order to cook the meats on the pizza. I loved the vegetables on this pizza these actually seemed fresh and were quite delicious. The Cheesy Bites were also nice, soft and garlic-y, just the way I like them.
The nutritional information for this pizza per slice is
Energy 365kcal
Protein 20.6g
Carbohydrates 30.0g
Fat 19.8g
Saturated fat 7.8g
Salt 2.7g
We also had the Chicken Supreme which is char-grilled chicken, mushrooms, green peppers and red onions.
This was far more to my taste although the chicken was still heavily processed. This pizza's base was a lot nicer with more tomato sauce and cheese.
The nutritional information for this pizza per slice is
Energy 273kcal
Protein 12.9g
Carbohydrates 30.9g
Fat 10.9g
Saturated fat 5.1g
Salt 1.5g
As you can see neither of the pizzas we ordered were particularly healthy or nutritionally balanced, but what can you expect this is fast food we are talking about.
I would recommend a Supreme topping to anyone, Chicken for the meat lovers among us and the Vegetarian Supreme for those who don't like meat, or at least ridiculously processed meat.
Full nutritional information for all Pizza Hut pizzas can be found at http://www.pizzahut.co.uk/restaurant/assets/files/Nutrition_Pizzas_April07. pdf
We also ordered barbeque chicken wings, you get 6 for £2.99, these are great, succulent chicken marinated in rich, sweet barbeque sauce. Our other side order was potato wedges, these are not for me, they are very bland. I would certainly not recommend these. There are several other side orders which are far nicer, spin rolls or cheesy garlic bread.
The nutritional information for all Pizza Hut products can be found at http://www.pizzahut.co.uk/restaurant/nutritional-information.html

Althou gh we were all pleased with the quality of the food we were not so pleased with the quality of the service at the restaurant. The very next day I went on to the Pizza Hut website and made a complaint, detailing all the events of the previous evening. To be honest I did not expect anything in response from Pizza Hut, but less than a week after I sent my complaint I have received £15.00 in vouchers!!! Think I'll be using these at a different Pizza Hut though.
I found the website (http://www.pizzahut.co.uk/restaurant/) very easy to use, I was also impressed by the level of information displayed on the website, menus, nutritional information, online ordering, career opportunities and much, much more.

Pizza Hut boosts excellent disabled facilities at all it's chain restaurants. Full information regarding these facilities can be found at http://www.pizzahut.co.uk/restaurant/disability-facilities.html. This particular restaurant has level access and a disabled toilet.
The other facilities at this restaurant are all the normal things; all you can eat salad bar and ice cream factory. I have not been to many other Pizza Hut's but I think that this one is quite small compared to some in larger cities.

The address of this establishment is
Pentewan Park
Pentewan Park Road
St Austell
Cornwall PL25 5BU
Tel: 01726 879 777
To get to this restaurant you will need to travel on the A390, between Truro and St Austell. As you enter St Austell there is a double mini roundabout and a turn off to Mevagissey, follow this road and after a hundred yards turn left and Pizza Hut will be glaringly obvious to your left. This is the same estate on which McDonalds and Travelodge are located.

Opening hours:
Sunday 11:00 - 23:00
Monday 11:00 - 23:00
Tuesday 11:00 - 23:00
Wednesday 11:00 - 23:00
Thursday 11:00 - 23:00
Friday 11:00 - 23:00
Saturday 11:00 - 23:00

To contact Pizza Hut you can
Call Pizza Hut on
020 8732 9000 (Head office -for all recruitment, franchising or general enquiries)
or
0845 372 3737 (Customer Care Line - for all customer service enquiries)
Write to Pizza Hut at
One, Imperial Place,
Elstree Way,
Borehamwood,
Herts. WD6 1JN
Email Pizza Hut using their online form at
http://www.pizzahut.co.uk/restaurant/contact-us.aspx

In general I would say that I like Pizza Hut, I have been a customer at many restaurants. I have eaten in a few and had a takeaway meal from several others. However, I have never been as disappointed with the service as I was when I visited St Austell. The food was fine, but after a long wait I was not too pleased. I would not recommend this restaurant to anyone unless you have the patience of a saint, which I certainly do not. If you are in Cornwall and fancy going to a Pizza Hut just go a few extra miles to the Pizza Hut in Truro, where you will get fast and friendly service, especially if you eat in.
As far as the food goes I would recommend a trip to Pizza Hut to anyone, the food is quite good and relatively cheap. If you haven't had a Cheesy Bites pizza yet, definitely try one of these, although you pay a bit extra it's well worth it. The sides are well worth the money too.
Please let me know if you have any experience of either of these restaurants (Truro or St. Austell) as I would love to know what other people have experienced.

Hope to have helped

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If there is any additional information you would like or think would improve this review, please let me know.

Please be kind I have not written this sort of review before, and really don't know what should be included or not?! 

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