Yes!! We have no pizzas !!

At the heart of the Grog and Gruel kitchen lies our trusty old reliable pizza oven. It has stood in place since the day we opened back all the way in 1994, when Blur were in the charts with "Parklife" and "Forest Gump" was in the cinema, good times. Over the past 15 years it has never let us down.

Picture the scene..Its mid summer in the Grog and Gruel. We are at peak trading with a full restaurant and bar with lots of hungry mouths to feed. Suddenly there is a loud bang and a bright flash and suddenly the Pizza oven fails to respond. After a lot of poking and tampering we realise there is nothing we can do. We now have to let customers know there will be a lot of disappointment.

We immediately get on the case of trying to find someone to fix our problem. Sounds easy? Well, no. After speaking to numerous catering technicians and electricians we finally get someone to look at it and find the parts we need to replace. We try to source the parts only to find not only has the original company vanished but also the company who took over from them has also vanished. Finally after days of phone calls and pulling hair out, we find a company that will custom make the parts we need. This will take over a week.

So, now we are waiting for our hand crafted parts to be sent to us. All this just to make a simple pizza. So for the next week to ten days we will have no pizza, or quesadilla's. The rest of our alehouse and restaurant menu is still in operation. Our chefs get a break from endless kneading of dough and spinning of pizza bases. Maybe next time you sit down to enjoy an authentic freshly made pizza you will think of the hassle a simple meal can be.