Mystery Guest: A very slim sliver of service

Sbarro promises pizza by the slice, then disregards its own USP.

A day after my husband complained of getting a pizza in an insect-infested box at Sbarro, I found myself visiting the same pizza outlet. Crouching behind a Ruby Tuesday outlet in New Delhi’s GK II area, Sbarro looks rather poor. It’s tiny, with room to seat no more than four or five people and a couple of staff members who look excited at the prospect of having a customer. It’s 6.30 pm and where other eating places are already overcrowded, Sbarro has just one of the two tables occupied, by a rather grim-looking lady and her son, who are nibbling on a cheese-and-tomato pizza.

I look around for the insects that may have crawled into the pizza the previous day, but thankfully I see none. And by the time I pick up a menu, another attendant, who doubles as a cashier, offers to help me make my selection. I am initially impressed by their hospitality, but after 10 minutes of not having decided on my meal, I sense the staff member looking impatient.

I ask him to help me decide between pasta, pizza and lasagna and he advises me to choose pasta. His logic: there’s no point in picking up an 11-inch pizza for one person. Why can’t I pick up a slice, instead of a full-fledged pizza, I ask, considering that Sbarro’s USP is pizza by the slice? “You cannot, madam,” he tells me. When I say that the menu card specifically mentions that pizza slices and combos are available for both dine-in and takeaway, my argument is met with stiff resistance as he points out that the fine print does mention that not all items are available at all stores. “Do you have an

11-inch tomato and mozzarella pizza?” I ask and get an answer in the affirmative.

“In that case,” I say quickly, “I’ll just take a slice.” It’s a sentence that gets my order cancelled. My argument falls on deaf ears and the lady on the next table joins in to complain about the same problem. There’s no lasagna either. “We had a very big order today so stocks have run out,” is what I am told.

At a loss to understand how one eats a large pizza standing in the middle of a street or sitting in the drab Sbarro outlet, I do the next best thing and get out. Alas, no food for me at Sbarro.

Score: 4/10. Four marks for initial hospitality. There’s no reason why a slice shouldn’t be served when they advertise that option.