A Better Pizza

My childhood idol, Prince, died today. I was heartbroken.
Then my office brought in A Better Pizza for lunch and I was healed!
I had the Chicago style BBQ chicken and it’s the best pizza I have ever had. The sauce had a pleasant sweetness that was delicious.
I tried the St. Louis style thin crust and a plain cheese Chicago style. Both were very good, but the BBQ chicken is what made me forget that His Purple Majesty is gone forever.
I can’t wait to try more menu items!

Ordered from her for the first time last night.
Not from Chicago, but I lived there for three years and know the pizza game up there well. I’ve had all the best (Gino’s /​Giordano’s /​Pizzeria Due and Lou Malnati’s).
This is a slight notch below my personal favorite Giordano’s, but considering that we are in St. Louis area, that’s pretty damn good. Had the 12″ sausage and pepperoni. Carried out. Got it home, it was still pretty hot (makes a huge difference with deep dish). The sauce has a nice tang and there’s quite a bit of it, as is the style. Cheese had a nice melt to it. Wasn’t a ton of sausage and pepperoni on it but enough and both were very good. Sausage is one topping that can be really bad on pizza and this was very well seasoned with good chunks of meat.
All in all, it was an unexpected treat. There crust isn’t quite at Windy City level but it’s pretty close. Will be back. Impressed.

Truly divine. Pizza very good. The owner is a hard a$$. So don’t expect them to give you free bee’s for mistakes. But this «A Better Pizza»

Great pizza! They’re Chicago deep dish is truly authentic and delicious. Very nice owner who takes his pizza seriously.

Here is my update for A Better Pizza. They have moved to: 2449 Hwy. K, (Four Seasons Shopping Center) O’Fallon, MO 63 366, phone nbr still 636−272−7499. Why the PSA? — it is still great pizza — it is seriously good, and the new location is a lot nicer, should you want to eat in.
Keep in mind a deep dish will take 35 — 45 minutes … so plan accordingly — it’s worth it, but don’t arrive if you are about to pass out.
I know this place gets some weird service complaints, but I’ve been here three times, and it’s been a nice, locally run place every time, are they as fast as Pizza Hut, probably not, but I don’t want to eat at Pizza Hut, I want somebody that cares about the food they are putting out … and did I mention the pizza is really, really good!

Best pizza I’ve ever had. Love the cheese. Not much else to say here. Don’t waste your time (and calories) with any other pizza joint

I purchased a voucher for this restaurant $ 20 dollar value for $ 10 dollars and thought I would try it. When I walked in the restaurant to pick up my pizza the owner was yelling at the workers in back. I thought it was very disturbing and uncalled for. No worker deserves this type of treatment even if they did something wrong. Take it as a learning or training issue. There not there for abuse or to be disrespected. I don’t know if we’ll be back. The pizza was ok, but thought it was over priced. We order the XXL thin crust pepperoni pizza

The pizza was amazing! The service was great! We arrived about an hour before closing and it does take about a half hour for the pizzas to cook (45 min for deep dish). So by the time we got our food it was close to closing time. Our waiter was extremely nice and did not rush us at all. As far as the wait, it’s well worth it. I’ll be going back soon.

New Location is up and running. Just picked up our deep dish and thin crust and was really impressed. Up the road on K, closer to 364. Next time we are dining in for sure or on the patio of it is complete. All new and fresh.

I absolutely love their Chicago style pizza, but the restaurant is dirty. The last time we got pizza there, we took it to go rather than dining in because workers were smoking in the back and the smell was filling the dining area. If you can look past the dirty and unsanitary restaurant, the pizza is phenomenal.

I chose to order this pizza because my child was having a sleepover. The cookies were big. I ordered a small pizza and in the future I will order a medium because they loved it.

What happened to this place? The girl who took my order on the phone seemed confused about the menu. Born in Chgo this Use to be the best in town. Ordered 2 pizzas last night, the sauce was not the same as the last 3 times I have been there, difficult to find the toppings they were so sparse and what happened to the crust. Had the classic thin crust where was that crusty base. The cheese was fine but I was so disappointed I drove 45 minutes and was so disappointed. The drive is too long and the pizza is too expensive for just OK pizza. I was there on a Saturday night and waited about 15 minutes for my pizza and didn’t see an adult working there all teenagers maybe that’s the problem. I have always seen the owner in past visits he was chatty but you could tell he was proud of the pizzas he made. Sorry but I don’t think I will return! What a disappointment!’

It’s not Lou Malnatti’s, but pretty darn close. I have ordered the Chicago style pizza 3 times now and it’s been consistently good.

The quality of the pizza has gone down over the past couple years. Last night’s visit I ordered a jumbo 18 inch pizza. The signature of a Chicago pizza to me is the thick cheese and a semi thick spicy sauce. This pizza was lacking in cheese and the sauce was very watery. The toppings I had were very very sparse. I had to tear apart 3 slices to find a single piece of onion. The service was good and friendly. Took about an hour for a dine in order, which was a tad bit slow even for a Friday evening I guess. The quality was much better when we started visiting a couple years ago. I also thought the pricing was excessive. I paid 41.15 for a pizza and 2 drinks. Got the exact same thing last week in Chicago for 25.00. It’s no longer a treat to drive my family 55 minutes to get here as its just not worth it.
My daughter who also visited had similar problems with her deep dish pizza quality. Sorry guys but neither of us will return.

I’m from KY. and wanted a Chicago style pizza and we got it. My wife and I ordered a 14″ thick crust thinking we was hungry. We brought ¾ of it back with us because it was like 3 times larger than what we’re use to. The crust and sauce was by far the best tasting I’ve ever had. Would definitely recommend this place!

Maybe this is against the Unilocal creed, but this review is based more on my family’s enjoyment of this pizza than mine.
To get it out of the way, I ordered a Chicago style thin crust veggie pizza. Good pizza — little bit of saltiness in the crust, lots of toppings, real (mozzarella) cheese and lots of it. Certainly nothing to complain about and would recommend to others who live out this way. A-​OK!
Why the 4-​stars? Because Husband grew up in Chicago (city proper, not suburbs) and loves deep dish Chicago pizza ala Lou Malnatis, Giordano;s, Uno’s, Edwardo’s etc. It was not to be found in Springfield, and he has made it his personal quest since we moved here to find a truly authentic Chicago style deep dish. He even has Tween sucked into it now, after discovering that this is her kind of pizza too. Well, the pizza here is as close as he will find in STL area. When he questioned the sauce, the owner (from Chicago) explained that STL does not like chunky tomatoes in their sauce so he had to cater to the local market a bit. He showed Husband how to doctor it up with some oregano, cheese, and red pepper and it was much more authentic tasting, save for the consistency. Husband enjoyed the Hell out of this pizza and when he brought it home Tween attacked it too. She actually got upset with him last night because he reheated the last piece for himself, so he gave her part of it. (Nice Daddy!)
Also, the owner came and visited with us to discuss ingredients and the girl at the counter was really helpful and you could tell she was really into what they produce. She told us all about where they get their hot dogs (Vienna beef) and how the owner makes and slices his own Italian beef and how good it is.
So even though this place is about a 30 minute drive and not at all conveniently located for us, there is no doubt in my mind that we will be repeat customers. I guess the long drive gives us time to call our pizza in and avoid the wait…
Thanks, A Better Pizza, for fulfilling Husband’s quest.

Really enjoyed this place! We called ahead (thanks Unilocalers for the tip) such that our wait time for the pizza was dramatically reduced.
We ordered two pies. Mine was deep dish and the wife’s was thin crust.
About the deep dish: Huge pie! Big crust, decent amount of sausage (the good kind — with fennel), sauce on the top. Yummy! Certainly a pizza where 2 – 3 pieces is about all you’ll need for dinner. I found the sauce a bit different than expected but added a couple of shakes of oregano (you have to ask for it) and some crushed red pepper flakes to make it just about perfect.
About the thin crust: No idea — the wife ordered a vege pie with mushrooms and I wanted none of that!
I’m really impressed with their pizza. Just be sure you don’t try their pizza expecting it to be like a St. Louis flat pizza. They don’t have provel, the crust isn’t wafer-​thin, and you can’t pick it up. If that’s what you want you should probably look elsewhere. On the other hand, if you want a pie that is similar to what you can get any number of places in Chicago then this is for you. We’ll be back…

I recently decided that it was time to give this place a try. We ordered one «thin» crust pizza with cheese and pineapple and a «Chicago style» pizza with canadian bacon, onion and hamburger. The sauce comes on the top of the other ingredients, and the crust is thick, but in a flour crust style instead of cornmeal. As I am not a meat eater, I didn’t try the Chicago style, but really enjoyed my pizza. It was a little smaller than a hand tossed thickness, but definitely unlike the cracker crust St Louisians are used to.
The young lady helping us at the register was helpful in explaining the variations in crust and she also mentioned that the maple bacon is extremely mapley (so that there wasn’t any disappointment). She took our money (a lot for what it was, really) and told us that our order would be ready to take home in 45 minutes. Arg. That was much longer than anticipated. Any future orders will be placed prior to heading over.
We sat down at a (very rickety) table in the corner and waited. Luckily, I was on a hot date with my mom, and we had plenty to talk about.
In the end, my mom felt that her pizza could have used more time in the oven. She was able to get multiple meals out of her pizza (as could I), and prepared it in the oven. She enjoyed it a lot more when she re-​heated it.
All-​in-​all, a decent experience. Not a great one, but nothing that would stop me from returning if someone would like to experience it.
Decent Pizza-​ing!

In the search for the perfect Chicago slice, I found «A Better Pizza».
As far as Chicago pizza goes, this is the best I have had in town. It’s better than the high dollar chains and the mom and pops alike.
I have been a repeat customer, and I will continue to be in the future. :)

This pizza joint is wayyyy out there. As in, if you live in the city you wont want to drive to O’Fallon JUST for this pizza, unless you’re obsessed with deep dish pizza like me.
However, if you’re in the neighborhood, I recommend A Better Pizza. As a deep dish pizza lover, I have to say this is a decent option in St. Louis. It certainly matches the taste of Black Thorn and deviates a little bit from Pi. I would say it is more true to a Giordanos in Chicago. The crust is thick, toppings are plentiful and there are several size options. The one thing I didn’t like was that the sauce was a bit runny when the pizza came out. So clearly this was a knife and fork kind of pizza.
The restaurant itself is designed more for take out, but as I was all the way in O’Fallon Missouri, I was not about to wait 40 minutes and then drive another 40 minutes to eat my delicious treat. I even got a tasty appetizer so I didn’t pass out from hunger. I ordered the cheesy garlic bread, which was pretty generic, but really tasty.
The interesting thing was that they had a lot of Chicago memorabilia all over their walls. Even menus from Lou Malnatis and Giordanos. I love Chicago as much as any Chicagoan, and I understand that deep dish is a Chicago thing, but I don’t know if I liked the tacky walls there.
When we were served, they gave us paper plates, which made cutting the pizza a bit difficult. Maybe i need a steak knife to cut their deep dish, because the crust was pretty hard (but in a tasty way.)
The service was friendly, but you have to make sure to ring the bell at the front desk so that they know you are even in the restaurant. Otherwise, you might be waiting a few minutes before anyone actually comes to greet you. Price wise, it’s just like any other deep dish pizza place, so it isn’t anything too outrageous.
Overall, I really liked the pizza and I would come back if I was in the neighborhood. I’m not sure I’m THAT obsessed with them to drive over to O’Fallon just for their pizza. But, if they want to open something in the city I’d certainly go more often! :)