The marketing department of @pizza have a lot to answer for.
“Hey guys, we have this great concept for pizzas that sees them treated like burritos and cooked on one of those archaic bread conveyor belts you find in cheap continental hotels. What do we call it?”
“I’ve got it. Lets forgo the use of the English language and catchy names for a symbol that precedes all Twitter and Instagram accounts. THE KIDS WILL LOVE IT. Lets use the ‘at’ symbol. Lets call it ‘@pizza'”.
“Excellent. Has anyone checked that the Twitter and Instagram for ‘@pizza’ is available? Or what the search results on Google are like?”
“Yeah, erm, it is literally impossible to find using that. But it’s okay because the kids will know to search ‘@atpizza'”
“Doesn’t that defeat the point in trying to sound young and trendy?”
“We don’t need this negativity here. You’re fired”
Maybe I’m just too old for it. Maybe I’ve given up on the idea of being relevant again, knowing full well that only the saddest of bastards take to posting song lyrics on Twitter. Maybe there is a great idea in here somewhere that I can’t see and it will go on to be a roaring success. But it’s not for me. I just want to be fed well, not spun through an exercise in style over substance. Not sat in a glossy room and talked through a concept that involves standing back up to queue and list off what I want on my cardboard, before waiting for it to cook and be garnished so that I can pay for it and take it back to the table.
It’s flawed. The choice of cheeses would have been easier had I not been looking at them. Do I want the cubed cheap stuff, or the grated cheap stuff? How you spoil me. Yes, I would love peppers, but no, not that bit that should be in the bin. And the meats?! It’s like being transported back to Subway, only these look even drier. I want to ask if the spicy sausage is made of sawdust, but the staff are so lovely I’m concerned they’ll disappear out the back to show me what brand of sawdust is being used.
Those staff are well trained. Every element is carefully measured and portioned so that all eight squares have the same toppings, layered in the same order. By the time it comes out of the industrial toaster it looks alright.
The eating is entirely different. This is late night kebab shop pizza tarted up for the train station commuters. The base is thin and presumably made from pulped wood chips and tears, the tomato base tasteless, the cheese claggy. The fundamentals are fucked. We order listed pizzas instead of making our own. The meat one is meaty; the spicy one spicy. That’s about as much as I can remember.
The bill is not much. Pizzas are a tenner each, two bottles of beers just under a fiver apiece. This is the only saving grace. Ten pound doesn’t buy you much in town, and keeping the prices low is key when attracting the one-visit-passing-through-trade of Grand Central. But it’s rubbish. On paper @pizza might have seemed a good idea. The reality proves that to be far from the truth.
3/10
There are good choices you can make. A2B Radio Cars are one of those.