Giordano’s

Brought 20 teenagers in tonight for a birthday party… The manager Jacob couldn’t have been more accommodating and helpful. We called ahead and pre-​ordered to make it easier on everyone. Our server, Jason, kept our sodas and waters filled and was helpful in every way. Can’t say enough great things about this location, the people here, and of course the great food! Best deep dish pizza, amazing garlic Parmesan fries, delicious cheesy garlic bread, and awesome salads (we got the chopped and the Caesar.). Thank you, Jacob and Jason, for making our sons birthday dinner great!

I don’t have much to compare it to but the deep dish was very good! I went to another location for the first time and this one wasn’t much different.
We had the Super Veggie Pizza and salad just like at the other location and were not disappointed. I also like how they tell you right away when you order the pizza that it will take about 25 minutes so at least you are prepared.
Which brings up a good point, don’t wait to put in your order until you are starving because you will have a long wait ahead of you and that wait will feel even longer if you are starving.
We would have bought some frozen pizzas to take home but they only had the regular, pepperoni, and spinach. No super veggie in the freezer :-(
But that’s ok because we ordered a medium and had plenty of leftovers!

Update: After the initial appearance of concern, I never actually heard from anyone at the Buffalo Grove store. Classic move – feign concern and shift the discussion offline. I never expected to hear from anyone in the first place, but the pretense of action is irritating. I am done with this chain.

This pizza is great. But the location? Not so much. I ordered for the first time from this location & they were horrible. The lady on the phone told me it would take an hour to an hour & 15. I waited for an hour & a half, maybe even two hours. Once we got our pizza, there were not any forks, knives or NAPKINS. My mom called the place & asked why we weren’t provided with any, the lady responded, oh you’re so supposed to tell us upon request. Well, it is a stuffed crust pizza & it will be messy to eat. & besides who doesn’t provide napkins? Isn’t that a given?
So if you want delicious pizza, highly recommend them. Just not this location LOL

This was my first time at this location so i have no reference of consistency. However, i placed an online order for a specific time and i arrived about 15 – 30 min early. I was a little annoyed that the crust was burnt but it really wasn’t the worst. The appetizer i got was clearly made earlier because it was partially cold by the time i was home (10min) so if i had come when i was told my order would be ready it would have been completely cold.
They are 1 of two locations that i am in the middle of so i will likely try the other one, but i will also likely give this spot another shot in case it was a bad day.

I have been to this location several times. The service and food have always been consistent. The service is amazing. These people must be saints. I always go here with my giant family and the servers are gracious enough to put up with 15 loud and demanding guests.
The food is amazing! I the pizza is perfectly crisp on the outside and oh so gooey and delicious on the inside. When they bring out the pizza, the server was kind enough to serve us since the pizza is piping hot!
Can’t complain! Need another trip back to Chi Town!

I heart Girodano’s! Great place for lunch in a hurry, courteous, welcoming, and THE food is ah mazing. I prefer light lunches and they have my favorite lunch break meal! I would eat there everyday, love the staff, very professional and price is right! Call ahead to have your food ready at the table when you arrive. I Cant say enough nice things about this location.

While their thin crust is decent and we order it regularly, I suggest you go somewhere else if you want deep dish/​stuffed pizza.
We ordered their stuff pizza take out. Got a medium sausage and I guess I must have a misconception that Sausage pizza is supposed to have sausage in it. We were lucky to get a small piece of sausage every three or 4 bites. Very Very doughy which I guess is what you get instead of sausage. Same size as Malnati’s but $ 5 more expensive and without much sausage… pretty much a rip off to have called this a sausage pizzea.
Normally a medium deep dish will feed us for 2 – 3 days. The rest of this one is going in the garbage.
Very Very disappointing.

Tonight I ordered 2 large stuffed pizzas 1 was spinach and one was sausage and spinach.
They were both excellent!
The spinach was cooked just right and the sausage was delicious. The crust was cooked just right
I would definitely return to this location

Pizza was delicious like a real Italian meal, my grandmother used to make. Great service, the real tall guy with the long hair was really interactive. I’m ALWAYS coming back.

Had great delivery service. Fast and HOT. I had the Chicken Parm. It was cooked to perfection. Would of gave 5 stars but the piece of bread that came with the dinner was very small.

I like Giordano’s pizza. Thin crust or stuffed I think they are both good. I started eating this pizza in college when they were on Chicago Avenue, and it is still my personal favourite.
I will say that I, like another reviewer, prefer to get take out. I have eaten inside this restaurant and it’s OK, but it does not have a ton of atmosphere and is not really an «experience», at least at this location.
I am also not really that thrilled with the delivery option. I have done that way when I was really sick or did not have a car, but it tends to take at least an hour. Also, a lot lot of times the pizza is squished or the box is really sweaty, I think it is just better to go pick up the pizza, if at all possible.
It is true that this the location is not always busy, but the entire mall where it is located is rather empty. Giordano’s used to have more space in this strip mall, but they cut back during the recession. I glad they did not close completely, as Giordano’s Inc. has had some financial problems.
For take out this is the best, although not the cheapest, pizza around. Don’t even talk to me about Lou Malnati’s nearby, I went there once and it was not good, not good at all.

Wasn’t sure if they took call in orders due to confusion on their website but was able to call it in. Pizza was done early and was fantastic. Staff was friendly and helpful was well

Delicious food, atrocious service. Order carry-​out.
Our waitress came by several times in the first five minutes while we were still browsing the menu, then disappeared for 15 mins after we were ready to order. She couldn’t tell us roughly how big an appetizer was, or how many people it would serve. After the appetizer came (missing any sauce the menu claimed it came with), she disappeared AGAIN for 20 – 25 mins without checking our drinks or anything.
When she dropped off the check, she yet again vanished into the ether, leading us to try to pay at the front next to the giant «CASHIER» sign. The person at the front most helpfully told us we had to go pay at our table. It’s almost like they didn’t want our money…
I’m not complaining on how long it took for the pizza to arrive (obviously that’s expected when it’s fresh), but for all the time we spent there NOT being tended to, we might as well have called ahead and ate it at home.

I’ve heard rumor that real Chicago natives aren’t a fan of Giordanos and maybe that’s the case. But, my brother and I, who are from Texas, can’t get enough of this place when we visit my dad in Vernon Hills. Our mouths salivate for months ahead of time just counting down the days until we can eat this amazing deep dish pizza!!! Before my dad moved to Chicago, I had never seen pizza built like this before (thick with cheese and sauce on top). I was hesitant at first due to the fact that I’m not a huge sauce lover, but boy was I wrong. The taste is out of this world! The amount of string, gooey, hot cheese makes the experience one of a kind. It’s definitely on the pricier side, but I think that’s just Chicago in general. Also, the wait can be pretty long. They are cooking a number of very large pizzas all at the same time. I would be curious to hear native Chicago residents take on this place.

I love chicago style pizza!!!
I would give 5 stars if I just had their pizza but I also had their appetizers. Their not AMAZING but they’re just good. I did take star off because of their service. They gave our pizza away to another table and didn’t even realize it until we asked them about our pizza! Not sure how that could happen and how the other table that ate our pizza didn’t even notice. They had to start over and make us another pizza so we ended up waiting about an hour and a half. I must say though, they did their best to make it up to us. They comped our pizza as well as gave us two free appetizers. That’s amazing service for ya. The downside? So many appetizers that we were almost full by the time our pizza arrived. However, the pizza was VERY good!
P. S. Right after we put our names down to be seated, we went up and put in our pizza order right away. That helps reduce the wait time.
Overall, great pizza and great service!

What happened to Giordano’s? We ordered 3 deep dish pizzas on Saturday even though the guy on the phone was borderline rude. We have always picked up in the past but this time we needed delivery. Sorry no, but we live 10 min away?
I was very excited to have my out of town guests a true Chicago deep dish experience, but there was half the toppings than we have had in the past. A slice of a small pepperoni had no pepperoni on it. The sauce was still good and luckily there is no bad pizza.
With all the choices we have for pizza, Giordano’s is at the bottom of the list.

When I lived in Chicago in the ‘90s we ate Giordano’s a lot, and I had it almost every time I’ve come back to visit, but I never ate in this location and it did not live up to my recollections. Service was fairly fast and friendly and the restaurant was clean and inviting and we were able to get a table for 9 with no wait, but the food was sort of flavorless.
We ordered a Caesar salad with sort of bitter lettuce. The cheese looked good but didn’t have much flavor, and same for the croutons. The dressing was unappetizing. I didn’t try the other salad but it looked OK. We also ordered some fried cheese; the breading was very crunchy but the cheese was flavorless. There were some fried ravioli but my nephew refused to share.
The pizzas came out in good time: one thin crust and one Chicago style. They were both hugely disappointing. The same tasteless cheese, hardly any sauce, and the crust completely bland and bread-​y on both. It doesn’t seem to be the pizza I remember.

I’ll start this by telling you that I had a terrible, disappointing experience here a couple weeks ago. My husband and I recently moved to Kentucky and were craving some Chicago deep-​dish pizza; so, while we were in town a couple weeks ago, we made plans to eat here at 6pm on a Saturday night with some friends. We should have gone somewhere else.
First off all, this location doesn’t take reservations. Fine. We showed up a few moments before we were to meet with friends and asked for a table for nine people. They quoted us at a thirty-​minute wait. Since some people were running late, we were fine with that. We waited outside and let the host person know. Wasn’t a problem with them — other people were waiting outside too. An hour went by, and still no table. At this point, we had moved to the indoor waiting area and were getting cranky with rumbling tummies.
One of us approached the hostess and asked what was going on. Apparently they seated a group of fifteen people that had come in after us because they thought that was our group (although we have nine people and gave them my husband’s name). We were quite unhappy. When the group of fifteen left a few moments later, we were seated in their place and immediately given menus. Our drink orders were taken as the last of our friends arrived (they were over an hour late). All of us, knowing that the pizzas take about a half hour to cook, ordered appetizers because, well, we were pretty damn hungry at this point. Most of us ordered the fries.
More time goes by. We notice that no appetizers have appeared at the table yet. It’s been awhile — longer than any hungry person should wait for appetizers. Annoyed, one of my friends approached the manager and asked what was going on.
Get this: THERE WAS NO MANAGER ON DUTY.
There wasn’t even an official host/​hostess.
The restaurant was extremely short-​staffed that night which explained the mix-​ups and terrible service. Still, that doesn’t excuse anything. However, the ‘manager’ — who was apparently the head cook from the kitchen or something — offered to personally serve our table. Our fries & appetizers arrived shortly before 8pm — and yes, the ‘manager’ served a couple of those plates. We scarved down our appetizers quickly; our pizza appeared moments afterwards. By this point, none of us even wanted the pizzas anymore. Most of the pizzas were boxed up. And then, of course, we waited another half hour or so for the bills to arrive/​be figured out. Sigh.
So… our thirty-​minute wait turned into an hour and we didn’t eat until an hour after that. NOT ACCEPTABLE. We had expected to be done with our meal by 8pm. Instead, we left the restaurant around 10pm… exhausted.
The ‘manager’ ended up giving us 20% off the bill. It was a nice gesture, but with taxes & tips, we payed as much as the original bill. The only good thing about this entire experience was seeing my friends and eating delicious food (when it finally arrived).
NOT coming back here again.

Okay, so Giordano’s you’re an oldie but definitely a goodie. My family has been going here for years, in fact my 15^th bday party was here way back when :) I have to say though at the time, I would only like your thin crust pizza since deep dish literally wasn’t my thing back then. However, when my mom would come visit you guys for lunch back in the day, she would always bring me a piece home to munch on. As I grew up and I’d like to think I’m finally close to becoming a real adult, my love and appreciation for Chicago deep dish style pizza has grown. I do have to say I’ve been to Lou Malnatis, Pequods and Giordano’s and Giordano’s ranks #2 favorite for me, which isn’t bad I must say! Pequods truly does have my heart and is my #1 spot. Here are some of my thoughts regarding Giordano’s and why I seem to like it:
1. It is really close to home, so the convenience factor truly plays a roll.
2. I love the cozy, casual atmosphere making it great for a date night or a fun night out with the whole family. Love their checkered red/​white table clothes.
3. The gooey cheese is everywhere for the deep dish and it makes for a very tasty experience, however eating it there is always much better than bringing it home.
4. The prices are very decent and fair and one large is enough to feed my family.
5. The people working there are always super friendly or at least the last few times that we have been.
6. It does take a little while to get your pizza so come at least 40 minutes earlier especially for the deep dish.
Overall, I will continue to go to Giordano’s for the closeness factor for me and it really is tasty, the crust is crunchy and the cheese is super gooey, just the way I like it. What I would like more out of it, is if it was a tad on the spicier side since I definitely like my kick factor in everything I eat. Definitely a fan!