Manzo’s Ristorante & Pizzeria

Manzo’s is now Tano’s Pizzeria. 3038 W. Irving. Ironically the place I went hundreds of times for healthy raw vegan food, now occupied by my favorite place for when I want to indulge. Went there last night and had a small pizza with my daughters and the service was great and the pizza was the same as Manzo’s. The other place had that «time machine» back to the 70’s feel that was, for me, priceless. But the new place has a traditional pizza joint feel and it’s great.

In the Portage Park area, I would have to say that this is the best place to order a thin crust pizza. The sauce, cheese, crust and other toppings were perfect. I tried getting something thicker than the thin crust, but it wasn’t as great… so I’m happy enough to get the thin crust every time we need to order pizza for delivery.
Their pasta is also very good. My friend LOVES their pasta, she couldn’t stop talking about it. At the time, I had only tried their pizza.
I’ve never had any problems with the delivery and hopefully there won’t be any to come.
Keep up the good job, Manzo’s!

We went there on a Saturday night and were pretty much the only people in the joint. It hasn’t been redecorated in decades, and it gave us the strange sense that it was a front.
That said, the service couldn’t have been nicer or more gracious, and they certainly give you plenty of freebies and extras. The pizza and pizza bread were great, the pasta was poor, and the «wine» was close to being Welch’s grape juice. But the prices are pretty cheap, so you get about what you pay for.
Best bet: just order out for their pan pizza.

This place gets one star for one reason. Unilocal doesn’t have anything lower than that… I ordered from this place for the first time because Grubhub has it listed as a 4star restaurant. I was looking forward to having a great pasta meal and all I got was a poor microwave dinner.
This whole horrible experience started 50 minutes after I ordered lunch. I called Manzos to see how much longer our food would be since they are less than a mile away. The man on the phone asked for my address and quickly said «the food should be there in a few minutes». At that point I wasn’t upset. I said to myself «man they must make fresh Lasagna» and thats why it might take this long.
25 minutes after calling (75 minutes after I initially ordered) a gentleman finally shows up with our food. We were a bit upset but said hey food is here lets enjoy! NOT!!!
What I received was a bowl of tomato sauce with a slice of lasagna that looked as if was cooked a few weeks ago and defrosted. The outside of my Lasagna was warm and the inside on it was cold and hard.
All in all, I will never order from this place again and hope you guys find this review useful.

Well well.
First time I ordered from here I loved their pizza pie so of course would order again soon after.
The 2^nd delivery experience left a lot to be desired, oh my.
Uhhhh, usually I order my pizza pie without hair, but Manzo’s was in a giving mood on this night. Not 1, but 2 pieces of hair we found on our garlic soaked pie.
When I called Manzo’s to inform them of this tragedy, I was offered 20% off on next visit. After about 10 minutes of emphasizing that the 2 hairs found nauseated me and scarred me from future ordering, I was finally offered my money back.
Yikes :-/​

Ooookay folks. This seems to be a strangely polarizing place. And it shouldnt be. Ignore of course the angry people (1 star) and the overly-​excitable ones (5 stars) and youll see that MOST people who review this pace give it 4 stars. Like me. And if you order right, you will too.
Here’s what happened. When I ordered delivery (w the 10% discount, nice) they came in 45 minutes. The manicotti was delicious, w homemade sauce. The minestrone was delicious. The fried chicken was… meh. But shame on me, right? What kind of bozo orders fried Chicken from Manzo’s Ristorante and Pizzaria. (This guy.)
Is it Spiaggia, of course not. But for delivery at these prices, of course it wont be. Besides, it also isnt a chain which is nice – neat to support the little guy. I’ve paid far too much money to Leona’s through the years. And at Manzos it DOES taste like mamma is back in the kitchen, making some tasty, tasty red sauce. Gravy, for the uninitiated (this guy).
So do it, do it. Order the stuff thats good and ITALIAN, and you will line up for the next 4 star review.

We went to Manzo’s because it’s in the neighborhood and my MIL was craving steak. The parking lot was full, but we were able to find a spot on the street right away. Walking in, it was like we were being transported to the 1980’s — burgundy, peach, and teal décor, oy vey. I was a little worried when we got the menu and it had so many items on it, and even more when I saw that the «Libations» menu didn’t contain a wine list, but a cocktail list instead.
We were brought water and bread/​breadsticks right away — the fresh bread was fantastic. It took a little while to be able to order because there was a very large party in the back, maybe 50 people. I ordered the Chicken Parmigiana, my MIL ordered the New York Steak, and my partner ordered the Fettucini Alfredo.
The soup and salads came quickly. The Chicken Noodle Soup was tasty but a little salty. The salads were Iceberg with a single tomato wedge, but the house dressing (herbed vinaigrette) was AMAZING.
All of the entrees were solid dishes, nothing spectacular, but definitely good (and quite inexpensive). They were all really big too, I ate my leftovers for two more meals.
Our waitress was very nice and joked around with us quite a bit. All in all, it was a good experience. I’m sure we’ll be back again.

Bad… Just bad. And forgettable.
I ordered a fried chicken salad deluxe (with fries and slaw) and a 12″ cheese pizza. Pretty simple, right? Well, the order was supposed to be delivered at 12:45… And it finally was… at 1:30!
All the food was cold. Like… COLD. Not room temp, not un-​warm… Straight up cold. Like just outta the fridge cold.
The pizza was fine after I microwaved it. I tried the chicken sandwich and it would’ve been fine too if it weren’t for the thin layer of ice coating it. Neither were even remotely close to being extraordinary… They were hardly even remotely close to being average.
And to top it all off, they forgot the fries and slaw.
To sum it all up… The best thing I had here (including food and service) was definitely the 12 oz can of Coca-​Cola Classic that I trustingly used to wash down the rest of this mess.

TERRIBLE delivery service. I did not even get my food in the end. I ordered lunch at 12:57, with an expected delivery of 1:57. At 2:00 I called just to make sure my order had left. The gentleman who answered the phone was completely rude and just like, yeah it left. Ok great. So at 2:20 I called again, and the same rude guy was like uh, I’ll call and see where he is at. After NO call back I called them again and the same answered. He told me that there was some gas leak and the driver was having trouble getting to my place. He said it would be another 5 – 10 min. I was like well my food is definitely going to be cold by then, so cancel my order and give me my money back. He was just like Ok, with the most pretentious attitude about him! He was not even apologetic!!!
The thing that really makes me angry is that NO ONE CALLED ME!!! I am a reasonable person and understanding to the surprise elements of life, but a courtesy phone call is the least that should have been expected.
I will NEVER order from them again!!!

There are a lotta reviews out there cold-​cocking my neighborhood Italian carry out place and I feel the need to review. Let me preface my Siegfried Line-​like defense with this– I’ve never had the much maligned lunch buffet and I don’t order the pizza unless I have the requisite 20 menus that can be converted to a free 14″ one topping. The pizza is not bad, it’s just not my pizza place. When i do get the pizza I go with sausage jalapeño. It’s OK. It never goes to waste.
Here’s the good: the menu is deep and certain things are fantastic, the salads are HUGE, the cheese sticks are gooey and fresh– not from frozen, anything with the red sauce is great if you like it a little sweet, delivery is fast (free before 3pm on weekdays) and the pepper and egg sandwich is the best I’ve ever had. The fried calamari is delicious, so is the cheese lasagna.
The bad: as previously stated the pizza is merely OK, the garlic bread is just a Turano roll with butter and garlic salt dropped on the grill and anything with a cream sauce has so much butter in it even a gourmand like me wants to shower then die after eating it. Their signature ‘Manzo’s Beef” has canned mushrooms and is more than a little bland.
The interior and the wait staff might both be from the Lyndon Johnson era but the kitchy bar makes a trip for sit down worth it as long as you have a sense of humor.

Mozzarella sticks: cold and congealed. Garlic bread: cold and hard. Bread: dry. Pasta salad: weirdest pasta salad I have ever had.
Seriously. What a strange, strange salad. A pile of pasta on lettuce? With 4 olives, three tomato wedges, onion and celery? I don’t get it. I didn’t get it. I mean, I ordered it, but I didn’t understand what I was being served.
Listen, though, the vinaigrette was delish, so you know, if you can dine on salad dressing alone, you’re golden. The end.

I am sad. Sad for the day that my Unilocal reviewers lead me astray.
My boyfriend compares me to a detective researching restaurants to order from/​eat at. That being said, i dutifully researched a new pizza place to try on this particularly trying Monday night. After seeing decent reviews for this place, i placed my order on grubhub. Over an hour later we got the atrocity. The pizza was luke warm, had practically no sauce on it and while we were eating discovered three navy blue strings cooked into our pizza. The mozzarella sticks were tiny and looked like they had been fried in some old tired oil. I haven’t tried any other things on the menu and i don’t think i’ll be giving them a second chance.
–I was looking forward to a delicious pie, but i got a sad, sad, sad wannabe.

Meh. We’ve ordered delivery from them through Grub Hub a handful of times. We’ve tried the thin and pan. The thin crust is okay, crispy on the edges and chewy towards the middle. The cheese does that kind of congealy thing that sometimes happens on cheap pizza. The pan is disappointing — it’s not pan at all! Everything about it is stuffed except that the cheese is where it should be, on top of the sauce. The crust is pretty much identical to Giordano’s bready stuffed (not a fan). I imagine Manzo’s stuffed is probably the same as pan, just with the sauce and cheese placement switched. The cheese on the «pan» pizza is much better than on the thin, I’m not really sure why. Maybe because it’s more melty?
The delivery always takes at least as long as the Grub Hub estimate, and a few times it took longer. And we didn’t order during especially high traffic times or anything, so I don’t recommend it if you want your food fast. They give you a free liter of RC if you spend at least $ 7, which is nice, but they ignored our instructions not to include it last time. No biggie, and it’s free, but still.
All in all, it was worth a try, but I won’t really miss it and kind of wish we’d gone with Baked Tomato on Elston the times that we did order from here.

So the three fat guys walk in and the hostess says, «Buffet?»
How did she know? She didn’t even lay a hand on the stack of menus.
We grunted. She laughed. She said that her husband was a big guy, too.
We could see why if he ate at the lunch buffet.
For 7 bucks — you get your choice of Italian beef — turkey — mashed potatoes — some delicious pork scalipini (probably spelling that wrong). You also get regular salad fixings and soup and — or course — pizza.
Your coffee — tea — or soda is also included. There is a table with a lot of pieces of cake on little plates.
Let me say that the atmosphere is cool-​70s-​spaghetti-​chic. The lights are low enough to be relaxing but not so that you can’t find your food.
The food — is marked so there are no questions (you’d be surprised how important that can be.) The food is fresh and re-​stocked on a regular basis.
The service is friendly to the point of getting drawn in to our debate on the merits of Elton John. (Come on, the guy used to be a genius — before Broadway wrecked him like they wreck so many other things of value.)
You will probably not find a better buffet — with better food — and better service for that price. There is ample free parking out back and decent street parking (metered — thanks, Mr. Daley) out front.
Stop in and relax and enjoy a delicious meal — and lots of it.
This ain’t a place for Tiny Dancers…
By the way — they are now open on Mondays! Yahoo!

Let me get this out in the open now, I love manicotti. If it’s on a menu, I have to order it.
Manzo’s has manicotti. Good, filling, drowning in sauce manicotti. With melted mozzarella. The first time I ordered it, I got a salad, but with their horrible all oil dressing, I won’t be getting it again. But although their menu has absolutely everything, the manicotti is good enough that I doubt I’ll ever try anything else here.
My husband likes their burgers and beef sandwiches, but isn’t fond of their fries.
Delivery is fast, the food is hot when it gets here and they serve fantastic manicotti. I’ll be ordering from here a lot.
As I said, I love manicotti and this place delivers in both meanings of the word.

It’s not what it used to be.
My folks loved Manzo’s, they used to mosey on down there on a regular basis and come back full of good, hearty food at very reasonable prices. I took to ordering from them and always got fantastic food; inch-​and-​a-​half thick filets, perfectly done, for under $ 20, good baked potatoes, excellent pasta. You know, not the Best Italian Ever, but really darn good.
Well it’s been a couple of years and when I finally ordered from my new place this evening, I was disappointed. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t what it should have been. The filet was still big and cooked very well, but it was a little stringy for my taste. Okay, that happens, it’s not the end of the world. But the baked potato was pretty obviously microwaved or steamed. It was leaden and damp inside, not dry and fluffy. The salad was okay, a little sad, but saved by a decent garlic dressing, and the fried ravioli wasn’t really very crisp, but it did come with a side of their excellent sauce, so that was a plus.
What really put me off was that we’d ordered one salad and one coleslaw and got two salads, two cans of Coke, and got the gratis RC, and no Coke at all, and got charged for it anyway, the butter wasn’t really butter but a butter/​margarine blend which… y’know if I’d wanted margarine I’d have asked for it, okay? And the au jus from my filet had spilled all over the bag so that the chair it got set on had more of it than my steak did.
The delivery guy was very nice, very pleasant, and it was clear that the problem was in the kitchen. I understand busy, but you can be busy and still be accurate. This order was sloppy, and between that and the food not being as good as it used to be? I doubt we’ll be giving them our business again. And that’s a shame because I really did like that place.

When Mario and Luigi arent saving Peach, or racing in the Mushroom Cup, they bring the Whole crew down here for some serious eats …
Maybe you’ve been here ONCE and thought … meh… (amatuer) or maybe you havent been here at all or even ordered out from here (missing out). Heres some things to know.
They’ll deliver anywhere! Still in the Closet? they deliver! Trapped in a Well? They Deliver! In prison? … honestly, not sure about that … At work? At home? At @? At a bar that doesnt serve food? Northside, southside, eastside? westside… They deliver!
They honestly have a pizza for everyone too! Be it the veggie fanatic, or the meathead, or even the taco nut … thats right, you havent dined on killer pizza till you ordered their taco pizza! Its a hangover must!
want a sandwich? Get their beef, extra hot, extra dipped!
Still hugnry? Order one of their paninis and watch it delivered by a semi! they’re huge and thats no lie… (accidental rhyme, i swear)
Want more traditional?
Try the sausage and Peppers, now heres a dish i grew up on and they do it better than anyone I know! (minus my nana …)
Also, their Pastas are killer, their Gnochhi is out of this world, and their egg drop broccoli soup is so good your taste buds will explode on impact! …(that might be a slight exaggeration)
oh … and when you order out they give 2 liters of RC just for being you … or ordering over a certtain amount. im pretty sure one time they delivered me an RC and I didnt even order, I think I just thought about ordering … anyway, its a great neighborhood joint, and what better than to support your local eateries!!! Get on it!

Good calzone. A little too much dough, but that is a problem endemic to all but the best. The dough itself was just the right consistency with a good taste, and all the other ingredients were in the right proportion. Cheese, sauce, and toppings were quality. And this thing was HUGE: it filled up a small pizza box and was thick too. All in all, this one added up to a B+.
It cost nine bucks and change, and they throw in a liter of soda (RC or Diet Rite) to boot. Too bad I don’t live closer, or I would try some of their other fare.
Park behind the restaurant, off Kedzie just north of Irving Park (there are two big signs which you can’t miss). They have free parking back there, and there is actually a door and window behind the kitchen on that side through which they serve the delivery and takeout orders, so your stuff will be right there. Convenient!

I had never even heard of Manzo’s, but a Friday night 1am pizza craving led to a frantic search of places that deliver that late. I really wanted something better than super greasy pizza by the slice type places. Manzo’s seemed to fit the bill, and even delivered to me in south Lincoln Park, despite almost a 3 mile distance.
The lady on the phone was super nice. She quoted us at an hour for delivery, which was disappointingly long and unfortunately very accurate. So around 2am our thin crust pepperoni and onion pie arrived. According to my bf, the delivery guy was kind of creepy, but I can’t vouch cause I didn’t go to the door.
As for the pizza, not bad at all! I didn’t like the crust, it was too plain. Maybe if they had baked it a little longer. But whatever seasonings/​sauce/​cheese they use, it was a fab combo. It definitely hit the spot, and it heated up well the next day for breakfast too! I’m looking forward to trying the stuffed and pan next time I need some late night pizza!

This place was recommended by a co-​worker. She is also Not from Chicago, therefore I trusted her judgment somewhat.
Ew.
Typical biscuit dough crust. Oh Well. The search continues…
I had this as delivery while at someones house a year later– It’s still standard biscuit fare. All the grease was on the top until it drips to the bottom, then the biscuit soaks it up.
Something interesting did happen while I was here the first time. The place is set up like a banquet hall (very classy you know). At like midnight all of these mobster looking old white guys come rolling in and sit at a really long table in the very back. Their places already had drinks sitting there waiting. When I left, there was a line of Rolls Royce’s and other fancy cars lining the street in front.