NOW FINISHED: Help create PizzaExpress' Service Charter and have the chance to win £250 of PizzaExpress vouchers

[Carriemumsnet]

You may recall many moons ago we asked for your thoughts on what makes the perfect restaurant/ cafe for mums (here), but we cannily didn't tell you who was asking the questions as we didn't want that information to skew your answers? Well we can now reveal that the company who wanted to garner your collective wisdom was > PizzaExpress and the reason they wanted to know is that they are in the process - in their words - of "creating the PizzaExpress of the future".

The first of their new generation restaurants will be unveiled on Oct 21st in Richmond (that's London not Yorks - sorry Yorkshire folks) and there'll be invites for Mumsnetters to road test it, with a chance to feedback and tell them what you think of the new concept before they start rolling it out elsewhere. Anyone interested in knowing more now, there'll be a blog about it live from Sept 17th here

They're introducing things that have the potential to keep children happy and occupied, like communal kids' drawing tables, and silent, interactive video screens created by the same chaps who did some of the great games at the Tate Modern. And they promise that there'll be room for buggies - one of the top things to come out of the survey It's going to be open all day, starting at 8.45, serving brunch and freshly baked daytime treats. The idea is that Richmond should feel like a bit like a 'living lab', where lots of new ideas are going to be tested out. The ones that work, they'll roll out, the ones that don't, they'll ditch.

One of the major themes that emerged from the initial survey was the difference good service makes to whether you frequent a cafe/ restaurant or not and PizzaExpress now want to create a Mumsnet Service Charter that they can use to help train their staff. Carrie is going to be videoed as part of their training, talking about what it's like to be a mum and what mumsnetters want and expect from good service. The idea being that this should help their waiters understand parents' needs and help them to help us make it through the day (or at least the bit of the day they spend in PE).

So go ahead - tell Pizza Express what three things would make your day (in terms of service). They can't guarantee to incorporate every single suggestion, but hopefully some themes will emerge that they can build into a realistic Service Charter.

We'll kick off:
Someone helping you with your buggy/ double buggy -rather than tutting when you struggle thro the door
Someone offering you something edible - even if it's just bread and water when you first sit down, and just being nice....
Sharp pencils
Good to get that off the MNHQ collective chest , now it's over to you. Everyone who offers suggestions for the Mumsnet /Pizza Express Service Charter on this thread will be entered into a prize draw where one lucky winner will receive £250 of Pizza Express vouchers.

Thanks and good luck
MNHQ

Probably re-iterating some already said but my top 3:

1. Fairly good at taking the order up front but can be horrendously slow after that at clearing up, taking dessert orders and more importantly bringing the bill at the end (we find putting our coats on usually does the trick!).

1. Smaller size of cutlery for children would be fab - proper stainless steel stuff not plastic!

1. Give the kids food some cooling down time before you bring it to the table!

Agree above - no silent video screens please - trying to teach them how to eat out in public!

a lot of the stuff suggested here is what pizza hut do already - the activity booklet which is also a menu is great, all drink come in small lidded thing with a straw. Chef's hat to colour in. Teeny little bowl to take up to the salad bar which is just perfect sized.

I second boosters for those past high chairs but hot big enough for seats. Also decent high chairs rather than the slippy slidy food in the seams fold-up type.

I think Pizza Express is pretty great already, would agree with a lot of the comments so far. I would love to see children-height sinks/soap dispensers/dryers etc in the toilets. Not just at Pizza Express, everywhere - it is such a simple thing to do.

3 out 6 of your kids menu items have mushrooms in them. But young children tend not to like mushrooms, not because they don't taste good but because they are slimey. I believe this is supposed to be some survival mechanism to protect them from eating putrified food.

It leaves them a choice of plain pizza, tomato pasta or spag bol which my son (aged 6) finds a bit boring. Can't you add a "special" to allow children to experiment a bit?

Also why not leave off the La Reine and offer a ham and black olive pizza instead? I notice lots of kids like black olives.

No don't leave off the La Reine - my 2 year old loves it!

1. Bigger range on the childrens menu. My older 2 would like to experiment a bit more, I think.

1. Efficient service. At times we've had to wait ages for courses to arrive and the 2 yo starts getting just a tad restless, as much as we try and crayon etc!

1. Couldn't they just offer a smaller version of any pizza on the menu. My 9 yo doesn't really want the babycino etc but could eat more pizza but not an adult sized one.

1. PLEASE don't bring in silent video screens. I'm not a tv fascist but isn't the point that children are learning to eat out and have a meal around the table, chat, play with the crayons and packs. The video would kill that and would probably put me off going there to eat. Not that keen on a play area idea either.

My main thing would be prompt service.

The very last time I went into our local PE (and I'm not going again) we had to wait 50 mins for our pizzas. Pizzas take about 5-10 mins to cook. The restaurant was not at all busy. Then the waiter argued with us about how long we had been waiting.

By this time the children were bouncing off the walls, and when the food finally came they were just about past it. I was tearing my hair out trying to keep them occupied and the staff looked on, stony faced.

And mushrooms are utterly disgusting.

Agree with mellifluouscauliflower about the mushrooms - I have eaten a load of scraped off shrooms over the years as my kids LOVE olives but won't eat the mushrooms. And a pasta dish wiith a cream or cheese sauce would be good instead of always tomato-based ones.

So that's why I hate mushrooms - I have retained my survival instinct!

my two both love mushrooms! (20 months and 4 years).

Also please bear in mind that for toddlers ham AND olives is a lot of salt. Either/or would be preferable.

Surely though you can always order the reine without the mushrooms, can't you?

NO NO NO to screens and childrens' drawing tables. If I go to Pizza Express then I'm going there to teach my DCs how to eat out in public, and to have a nice time myself, not to go to a noisy childrens' party atmosphere. You are not Pizza Hut - if you try to copy them then you may gain some parents of toddlers, but you will lose almost everyone else (and I speak as a mother of two under 4).

YES to prompt service, childrens' meals especially and to cold plates (or at least, not nuclear hot).

YES to child-sized drinks in child-friendly glassware, i.e. shorter and easy to hold. I really resent having to spend a lot of money on an adult drink, and they are always too tall and too heavy and get knocked over.

YES to being especially prompt with the bill - once the food is done with, my children are likely to start getting bored very quickly.

Cater for those with allergies by:

1. Increase the number of items available which are free of the major allergens, backed up by readily accessible comprehensive lists of what is in each ingredient.

1. Glutenfree pizzas with small separate oven and gf area away from loose wheat flour, vegan "cheese" and toppings available for those who may also have a milk allergy. Dairy free ice-cream - many varieties and flavours are available and they keep for months in a freezer.

1. Staff properly trained to avoid cross contamination.

PLEASE don't kidify it all, it is the only venue in town which a) we can afford to take our children but which isn't all wipe clean surfaces, and primary colours.
We use it when we really want to have a vaguely civilised night out but can't get a sitter and therefore children have to come.

Have a front door that actually opens so you don't have to walk round the back past an open cellar hatch that your toddler nearly falls down - Yes I am looking at YOU ALRESFORD IN HAMPSHIRE BRANCH.

also please ask if kids want their puddings when they have finished, not when the adults have, which is much later by which time everyone is a bit fractious.

I would rather not have children's menus. Just smaller portions of adult ones, priced accordingly.

We go to an independent where the dcs watch the pizzas being made from the raised seating, if not busy they are called up to pick their toppings and are occasionally sung to Sorry but PE really can't compete.

Last time we went to PE it was very loud acoustically and I wanted a perspex vacuum dome to descend and hermetically seal off the next door table and their banshee child

No tiled floor - this together with the too small highchairs/ no booster seat for big chairs has meant DS has fallen off chair onto floor twice in different PEs

Why not be able to order on line before arriving to speed up process?

Maybe have on the menu a bigger (rectangular?) pizza can order to share with ability to have different toppings on different sections - reduces clutter on table

Yes to other stuff for kids to do, eg communal lego/jigsaw etc table

I'd like to see some information card/ learning / discussion card for families while you eat the food For example - pizza comes from Italy; can you find Italy on the map?
The tomatoes on this pizza are grown in .... they take.... so long to grow. Where more exotic toppings are sourced from, so that children feel responsible and interested in not just eating but food consumption, production and the ethics of a food chain. This would give restaurants like Pizza Express a huge edge over other chains. all the suggestions posted are valid - but a good meal is not just about the food, the company and the conversation are equally as vital. promoting discussion, getting people debating and inspired about our world are skills our children would love whilst tucking into a delicious pizza!

Please God NOT a communal Lego table!

As others have pointed out a lot of us go to PE as its an affordable restaurant experience. If I wanted my children to play with (probably manky) toys and watch TV I'd stay at home.

If you are going to have a children's menu then please put something other than ice cream as a dessert - surely some sort of cake would be possible?

Other than that I wouldn't change much other than to reiterate the plea from many people not to serve small children with drinks in narrow base highball glasses-they will get knocked over at some point.

To those of you asking for free nibbles on arrival, jugs of iced tap water, free baby purees et al I think you are forgetting that this is a profit driven organisation-restaurants make huge profits on drinks for example so the last thing they want to do is remove the potential for that profit. This explains why they are
a)so keen to bring drinks immediately so that you will need another by the time your food arrives, and
b)offer salty thirst making starters such as olives/garlic bread

Here we go. My ideal restaurant.

1. Have a person greet you when you come in and seat you before your kids kick off.

1. Have some clean highchairs available, big enough for toddlers as well.

3, Bring courses and the bill promptly.

1. Offer half sizes of everything on the menu, with the addition of an empty plate for toddlers so they can have bits of everyone else's food. Offer milk or tap water to kids if they want something other than a fizzy drink. If people want puree, sell them a sachet of Plum babyfood.

1. Shut other guests up if they complain about breastfeeding or natural toddler restlessness.

1. Make sure the nappy changing table is not too minging.

er

That's it.

Put in TV screens or lego and I will avoid your pizza chain like the plague. Similarly most of the other things people were suggesting. I want to have a nice pasta and a bit of salad with a glass of Pinot Grigio whilst not being on edge all the time listening to mummies fussing away and other people's children rampaging in critical mass form. Children should fit in with us (in an age specific way), not the other way around.

Service wise:

Patience has to be the most important trait a member of waiting staff can have.

To actively support BF so if other customers get snippy about it they defend the BFer rather than be apologetic to the narky customer.

To be flexible about the menu, so having all veg available with all meals - not salad if you have one thing and veg if you have another, being able to hold the sauce on a pasta dish, that sort of thing. Good for fussy eaters.

Parents being able to order a bit of this and a bit of that without feeling as though you ought to order a main even though you are eating with DH later on.

Scrupulously clean highchairs.

A 'good little customers' charter for the child customers so that other kids are dissuaded from getting down and running about or shrieking excessively with excitement.

The last one is a prescriptively bad idea because pfb parents would HATE it, but I'd love it.

Decent cutlery so that little ones can have proper knived and forks and not plastic, but not oversized for little hands either.

No hot plates.

No hot plates or hot drinks hovering over DC heads ever.

i'm finding it weird that no-one from PE has had the courtesy to come onto this thread and thank us for our invaluable input. (and apologise for all those many hours of slooooooooooooooow service).

Aitch me too - I would have expected some response by now.

It's a bit remiss of them Aitch, isn't it.

I havent read everything, and Im not entirely sure if it would work in PE, but a wee local pizza place used to give kids sme bits of pizza dough to make their own shapes with, then baked it for them. Prob some big H&S thing now...but I like the idea still.

I'd like to see children's party facilities - not for toddlers but for older children, so special party menu and perhaps a birthday cake or decorated dessert for the birthday child? With party bags etc provided.

Otherwise, wider doors for buggies, buggy parking (think this has all been mentioned), milk/baby food warming facilities.