"Why is it that Manchester's restaurant trade can not manage their staffing levels and opening times around Manchester United home games, stadium concerts or events at the MEN Arena? Late night dining after midweek events is largely restricted to China Town or Rusholme and you can guarantee that every restaurant will be full. The same applies to Sunday match days. Those restaurants that do decide to open are often ran on skeleton staff despite that fact they're having to turn away customers because every table in the place is already taken. And so it was at Pizza Express South King Street on Sunday. United had just beaten Villa at Old Trafford and Simply Red were playing their farewell gig at the MEN Arena. As with every open restaurant we walked past, the queue for empty tables snaked out the door so we didn't really begrudge having to wait 15 minutes for an available table. The fact that we had to wait for a further 20 minutes to even order drinks probably should have indicated what was to follow.

Pizza Express boast a fantastic menu and prices are very reasonable. The decor at the South King Street branch, the first in the city centre, is also very inviting and helps create a vibrant atmosphere. The dining area upstairs is even bigger than the main restaurant downstairs and, during our visit, hosted a large birthday party. At a guess, this group booking combined with the sudden influx of post-match and pre-concert diners was too much for the restaurant's staff to cope with and complaints seemed to be coming from virtually every table in the place.

We'd already been sat down for 30 minutes when we forcefully had to ask to order. The scene from the open kitchen explained the delay. A flustered manager, clutching a handful of orders, argued with the laid-back chefs with the entire waiting staff gathered around rather than dealing with customers' requests. When they'd finally sorted out the problem our food eventually arrived and, to make matters worse, the starters were very disappointing. The Mozzarella & Tomato Salad (£4.55) was better than the Bruschetta con Funghi (£4.15) although certainly not worth the hour wait. The mains were a vast improvement though, the Pizza Funghi di Bosco (£7.25) and signature American Pizza (£9) were both tasty, if somewhat on the small side, and certainly up there with the best in town. And that's probably the point here. There are many excellent pizzerias in Manchester and if they're not on top of their game, customers can afford to be unforgiving. The South King Street branch of Pizza Express certainly said goodbye to many unhappy customers on Sunday night, who are unlikely to return.

On another visit, when they are probably better staffed and more organised, Pizza Express South King Street could well be recommended, however the only redeeming factor from our visit was one excellent very apologetic waiter. Empathising with each angry table he visited, he went out of his way to make sure our request for more drinks came with a free double measure. Had he not been there, we would not have left a tip - and I can't remember the last time that's happened." - Restaurants Of Manchester 6/5/09 (visited on a Sun evening)