Pizza King

Coundon — the ex-mining village three miles north-east of Bishop Auckland, set above the Gaunless valley — keeps a small parade of food shops on Collingwood Street, and Pizza King is one of the more recently established late-night operators on it. The kitchen runs the standard north-east pizza-and-kebab format with sandwiches, salads and desserts rounding out the menu, and the shop trades into the early hours every night with a particularly long Sunday opening that runs from lunchtime through to two in the morning. That weekend pattern is the shop's positioning advantage — most Coundon takeaways close earlier — and it pulls in trade from neighbouring Leeholme, built originally to house Leasingthorne Colliery mineworkers, and from the rural villages running back towards Bishop Auckland. Reviewer feedback splits along familiar lines: praise for fluffy pizza bases, kebab quality and friendly counter staff is set against complaints about wait times and occasional cold-food deliveries, which is the typical pattern for a working-shop operator running long hours through the weekend. Online ordering runs through the shop's own site at pizzakingcoundon.uk. The minimum order is held at a reasonable level which keeps the shop accessible for single-person orders as well as family deals.