Gino’s East Pizza

Gino East no longer in Naperville, Il. Moves left no forwarding address.

Welcome to Gino’s Grease Pizza!
I’m pretty sure this location closed and transformed into a sketchy sportsbar about the time I moved out of Naperville. A good thing, too, because Gino’s gives Chicago style deep dish pizza a terrible name and its eaters a coronary. Triple Bypass on a grease-​laden ham slab, anyone? Coming right up. Would you like stents on the side?
Pizza at Gino’s goes something like this:
— Take trencher [stale, old bread]
— Smear with salt sneezed on by a tomato
— Add thick slab of briny ham
— Pile on oily cheese
— Add requested vegetables
— Scare with a flame
— Serve lukewarm in coagulated grease.
I really fail to see the attraction here, and I’ve been known to eat at dive bars, street vendors, and search out the real foodie experience beyond Zagat reviews, sleek walls, and fancy laminated menus written on duck feathers in gilded ink and virgin’s tears. Gino’s offers a narrow menu of unappetizing pizza standards. Sausagefest pizza, pepperoni purgatory, limp veggie unsurprise: they pretty much encompass an unremarkable, uncreative attempt at throwing a few ingredients on their infamously salty, greasy hunk of crust you can chew for three weeks without biting through.
Seriously, I shouldn’t have to pull out a Masamune katana to try to cut one of these suckers. The pizza wheel only penetrates the top armour, and dents the fat slab guaranteed to induce immediate cardiac arrest. The obesity epidemic starts in kitchens like this.
The thing is, there’s no redeeming quality to the pizza they serve. All the grease gathers on the bottom, wicked up in the flavourless, tough dough beaten within an inch of its life in the Gino’s Guantanamo kitchen. I love chewy crust, soft crust, crispy thin crust. I hate deep dish with a passion when done Gino’s way: used like medieval trenchers to soak up all the fat, grease, juice, and blood, then hurled to the dogs. Guess what, I’m not a dog.
Furthermore, the service was awful and the building was a stye that stank worse than a wet pig. The mildewy damp suggested a bad leak somewhere and persistent problems that I hope a renovation for a new tenant addresses, otherwise they’re going to have similar issues. It was dark, bleak, and dank in there, like a trip to deep dish purgatory.
Do yourself a favour and avoid this kind of nightmare.

Good riddance to a wet rag smelling hole! This pitiful attempt at destroying a Chicago classic will not be missed.

The last time I wanted to go here it looked like the location is closed.
So long, the best garlic sticks ever.

I am beyond angry and disappointed with my Gino’s East experience. We recently moved to the Naperville area from the city. We often ate at the Chicago location and loved it, so we decided to go here for my husband’s birthday this past weekend. We arrived with two small kids in tow to find no one at the hostess stand. We waited and waited. The high school kid who was working the carry out counter didn’t say a word to us (and he looked at us several times). We were standing there about 10 – 15 minutes waiting just to be noticed. Another party arrived after us and they asked the carryout kid if they had to seat themselves. He rolled his eyes, huffed and came out from the counter to seat them. I was appalled. We were waiting there forever! When he came back, I said, «Excuse me, we have been waiting to be seated…» He again, rolled his eyes, huffed and said, Hold on…” and walked away. I looked at my husband and we left. Such a shame as they lost what would have been very loyal and frequent customers. I don’t care how good your food is, customer service is key… and it clearly isn’t valued here.

I visited here the first time a friend of mine came to visit and he had to have the sausage patty pizza because some guy on the food network said it was a must have. To be honest, this was my first real taste of Chicago pizza because I only moved to the area recently. I have to say the pizza was good, but I didn’t think it was anything to make a fuss over. I have no complaints with the pizza and I enjoyed it and the service was good, but it isn’t a place I feel I have to take others to when they visit and it isn’t something I will go out of my way to get.

Found the stuffed (deep dish) to be better than Giordano’s. Some of the reviews for service were negative. I found no difference between Gino’s and Giordano’s service. Both were good. I don’t live Illinois but on my next trip I will go to Gino’s East before Giordano’s.

We will never go back here! We used to love coming here but the food and service has gone way down hill. We were the only ones sitting in our area. We ordered and didn’t get our breadsticks or drinks for 25 – 30 minutes and that is only when we asked again for them when we finally saw a waitress. Our pizza was a little undercooked but it did not even taste like their pizza. We asked if they changed the way they make their pizza and the waitress said we have 3 different cooks back there and they all have their own way of making the pizzas! What? Seriously? We didn’t eat it. We complained but it fell on deaf ears. No manager to be seen, just a bunch of teens who seemed like they didn’t want to be there or acknowledge our presence.

Been there many times but this will be my last and it’s too bad. It’s due to bad customer service. There was one person eating in the dining room and a lady sitting in a chair waiting for her take out order and no staff around. We stood at the front for awhile then a guy came around and asked if we’d been helped, we said no and he said he’d get someone. Then some girl came out with the ladies order, said nothing to us and went about whatever she was doing behind the counter. We left. I’m not usually one to bash a place but this was horrible customer service. I’d like to get a hold of the owner.

I rarely say that the location of a city restaurant in the burbs is as good as the location in the city however the Gino’s East Pizza in naperville is way better then the one downtown. Why… The breadsticks. This location has the toasted garlic bread stix. If you haven’t tried them here you are missing an explosion of butter and parmesan cheese that is to die for. The breadstix at the one in the city aren’t even close and were actually a big let down after having these. The pizza here is great and is a great deal on monday and wednesday nights when they have there family special for $ 15.50 for a large pizza and coke. While the pizza is better at Lou’s the pizza here is second on my list. The wait staff here is always good as well. My only complaint about this location is the no graffitti zones… Really this is Ginos East writing on the walls is part of eating there. If you are looking for some really great breadstix and pizza though be sure to stop in.

This review is so fresh, I’m eating the food as I type it. Hot Out Tha Oven, Bitches!
I’ve eaten here many times before when I was a meat eater and the pizza is pretty darn good. I think I like the Wheaton location a bit better because in the past we’ve gotten a few dud pizzas from here, some some not so hot, some with wrong ingredients, sometimes they’re out of toppings or certain beers… anyway, that was in the past so I’ll leave it short but am still taking all that into account when giving my star rating. I haven’t been here since I stopped eating meat because I didn’t think a deep dish pizza with veggie would ever be able to top the crumbly sausage and pepperoni… as I type, I’m being proved wrong.
For the pizza I’m eating right now, the deep dish vegetarian, is absolutely phenomenal! The crust is soft, a little doughy, a fair amount of toppings… and good toppings at that! I think there’s zucchini on this pizza! In short, they have won me over. I’m going to have a new high calorie place to try to avoid.