Fornello Express

Whoa. These reviews don’t match my experiences at all. I live on Dakin, it’s about a minute walk to Fornello’s and Fornello Express.
I have never had a bad experience from Fornello Express. We’ve never done delivery, always picked up… but the food is always great.
Chicken parm, spaghetti, caprese, and salads (we usually request the pear salad which comes from Fornello’s but they never have an issue supplying it).
The prices aren’t super cheap or anything, it’s usually around $ 50 or so… but we’ve always enjoyed it. I’ve also never had any issues with the phones. It usually the same guy, and our orders have never been wrong.

went to fornello express for the first time tonight. was pretty disappointed. I’ve been to the actual restaurant part and loved it, had no complaints. but the second I walked into the express side the guy working there didn’t seem to know anything.
I mainly went because I saw a buffalo chicken sandwich on the menu online, I asked him about it and said they don’t make it anymore? then I just picked a chicken wrap and asked what all came on it… he had to go to the kitchen to ask and still came back and said he honestly had no idea. he just seemed to not care about my questions. I ended up getting a philly steak sandwich and it was okay, but the cheese was all melted onto the paper they wrapped it in. barely had cheese on the actual sandwich.
I will probably not try anything else from here, I’ll just stick to the restaurant side of it.

Reviews of this place and the main restaurant are polarizing. I knew I had to walk past it this evening, and I would see it often passing by, so I figured I would try it.
I enjoy the general taste of pizza, so I’m an easy pizza date, and despite many negative reviews, I saw no reports of food poisoning, so I decided that trying a slice from Fornello’s Express would be a at worst an appropriate snack. Sorry, for the serial commas.
It was OK. First, for the price, it’s pretty good. I’ve seen a lot of criticism of the cost of a slice; this one is $ 4.00 for a one-​topping slice and a fountain drink which you will wisely top off during the 5 – 10 minute wait. Other jumbo slices without a drink are around this range. One topic of size…
… size is also OK. I wouldn’t call it a jumbo slice, perhaps just a pretty large slice. Still, for the price and drink addition, this is an attractive deal.
And taste… was also OK. It just didn’t have much depth. But it was an adequate combination of ample but dense cheese, kinda blandish thin crust and not much sauce. My recommendation for anyone getting an inexpensive slice like this is pepperoni; peps are hard to F— up. Sausage was on the dry side.
Will I be back? probably; probably to try the main restaurant. Really easy thing to do for you, Fornello X, throw that slice under the broiler when someone orders pepperoni, so that the peps become crispy and turn into little grease cups.

Boy, this place sucks.
I go in last night to order two slices of cheese pizza. Very simple. They advertise «Pizza by the slice» outside, which usually means quick service.
Fast-​forward nearly 25 mins after ordering, they come out with one slice… ONE. Then take another 10 mins for the other slice.
Oh, and the pizza sucks. Won’t come back here.

Really Fornello’s? So I just called to order a pizza with 10 coupons which meant the pizza would be free. Spoke with 3 people before I was told they are «under new management and the system would not allow them to enter it.» So I haven’t ordered in a while from them, but why would you lose a customer over a medium pizza?!? Obviously, the «new management» does not need my business… There are plenty of other pizza places in my delivery zone!

So despite being attached to a restaurant, this is not exactly restaurant quality food. It’s ok, but certainly not the same as dining next door. The pizza is ok, but not amazing, which I think is problematic considering the options in this city. But it’s walking distance from my place, so it’s quick and it’s never cold. Speaking of cold, I was actually in the store when Brandon R. was calling and complaining about his pizza. My only thought was…“dude you ordered pizza on superbowl sunday, during a blizzard. A BLIZZARD.” put it in the oven and warm it up. However after hearing about his second incident I now feel bad for him.
Anyways, enough of that. So figuring their pizza was not worthwhile, I then switched to their lasagna. I thought, Italian restaurant, how can they mess up lasagna… Well it was mediocre at best, and surprise surprise… It was not very hot…2 strikes and you’re out with me. There won’t be a third.

So this place used to be amazing. The food was delish, the service was fast all which made their expensive food worth it. Not so much anymore. They’ve reduced the menu, the staff that answers the phone is not knowledgeable about their menu at all. Literally took 10 minutes to order food. Sadly I cancelled my order, and went to Pasta Al Gusto on Southport. Ratings to come for them. But considering I ordered basically the exact same thing for $ 15 less gives them a head start for sure.

I just tried to get a free pizza with the 10 cards I collected. They said they are no longer honoring that deal. That’s the way to treat customers who have ordered at least 10 pizzas from you over the years. Looking at the current poor reviews of their pizza, I guess I’m lucky I didn’t order one.

This is probably the worst pizza I’ve ever eaten.
I ordered a large stuffed cheese. I ate two bites, GF ate about the same, and we threw the rest away.
I’ve never done that before… will never return.

Last night at 6:30pm we placed an order for delivery — one 12″ pizza (half cheese, half mushroom and broccoli). We were told the pizza would arrive within 45 minutes. 1 hour later, we called to check on the status and were told it was on its way. After several calls, the pizza finally arrived cold at 8:45pm — OVER TWO HOURS AFTER WE ORDERED IT!
Even though it was significantly delayed, the manager would only wave the delivery fee ($ 3). We were told that we could call the owner the following day (today), but the pizza was so bad that we wouldn’t want another one, even if he was to offer it free. We will simply never order from this restaurant again.
The pizza they finally delivered was cold, there was hardly any cheese on it. There were 5 pieces of mushrooms and 5 pieces of broccoli at best, and had we not been absolutely starving by the time it arrived, we would have thrown it out.

When my boyfriend and I lived in Uptown we enjoyed this place. The food is good but the service has always been shoddy. Last night we ordered a pizza and calamari through Grub Hub. Grub Hub, a business that has my address information on file. Grub Hub, a business that interacts with many other restaurants that have successfully delivered to my place. Somehow Fornello delivered my food 30 blocks south of where I live. My food arrived 30 minutes later (and I’d already been waiting an hour and 10 minutes for my food). Needless to say, the food was cold and the entire thing was a disappointment.

It’s not a bad slice. But for how many better tasting and more affordable slices there are in the area, it doesn’t look good for Fornello Express. I will say that I’m still a fan of the restaurant and love the newly renovated bar and Bistro next door.
But the slices at Express are pricey, sometimes too greasy, and just aren’t anything special compared to places like Dimos or Big G’s