Chicago’s Stuffed Pizza

Why is this place still open? I’m ready for something good to be in this location.

Closed unexpectedly and with no explanation — came for lunch and had to change plans. The security guard outside said they have been closed for a couple of days.

The food here is actually pretty good and closest you’ll get to deep dish pizza besides Uno’s on IDrive.
However, each time I’ve been here their service is absolutely horrible. This most recent time I placed an order online. I came at the expected pick-​up time and the order was still sitting on the printer… they had forgotten about it.
The hostess started making excuses saying they thought the construction would close the place today and they were understaffed, but I counted at least 4 front end staff members and only two tables.
What a shame, this place won’t be around for long.
RIP

No! I will not go back. I gave it two try’s and both of those times I was disappointed. The décor, service, and food quality are all severely lacking attention. The pizza tasted like something you’d buy in the frozen section at the grocery store. Who ever does inventory clearly doesn’t care because they didn’t have bottle water, certain beers & spirits, and some food items. Either they are on the way out the door or just don’t care.

The positive:
Ambiance is nice, location is good. Server was friendly.
The negative:
Pizza was some of the worst I’ve had at a restaurant. Sloppy preparation, bad crust, poor cutting (lots of tiny weirdly shaped pieces), huge pieces of zuchini were uncooked and really didnt compliment the pizza. Whoever makes the pizza recipes really did a terrible job. Nearly any recipe online will easily make a far better pizza.
The wait was long both for the pizza and the check. It took maybe 40 min before we got the pizza and the place was not very busy.
Price was high for the pizza (24 for a 14 inch). It was a speciality pricing for a high end pizza but the quality was low end late night drunk food from a microwave so it doesn’t justify it.
This restaurant needs to do a total 180 or shut down. I can’t imagine it will get any kind of loyal following with its current straregy of cheap poor quality food for high prices.

This place was pretty dead at 8:30 at night. Granted it was a Thursday but still. The staff was just waiting for us to finish so they could leave.
I wanted to try the pizza but it takes 45 mins to an hour for the stuffed pizza and 25 mins for the regular pizza. That was a bit longer than our group wanted to wait so we opted to get a bunch of apps. We got the pick 5 (w/​Zucchini, mac & cheese bites, calamari, moss sticks & onion rings), the bruschetta and chicken wings.
Apparently the manager was making/​assembling everything (why I’m not sure). The zucchini sticks were good but über hot, the mac & cheese bites were disappointing. I thought the calamari was the best of the five items in that basket — which was apparently supposed to be served on a plate. The chicken wings were mediocre. The bruschetta was a mess. They were drenched in balsamic. The bread was complete soaked from it. While they ultimately tasted fine, that’s not really what you’re looking for.
Our waitress was personable but the restaurant was a bit of a miss for me. They have such a cool place (granted a tough location because it’s hidden back behind Hamburger Mary’s). It’s kind of a shame. I have a feeling this place won’t be there long.
Can we bring back the whiskey bar in the basement?

Why can’t I give this place «no stars»?
This was the WORST place that I have been to in a long, long time!
So I love pizza and we wanted to try this pizza place– we have seen it for a few weeks and the «sign» outside was appealing. So we made plans a week in advance– lets’ go to this place!
So on a Saturday night at 7pm on Church Street– the first thing, we can’t find it. It’s tucked away behind other great restaurants. Once we found it we had to hail down staff to get a table for our six guests. But the other thing is– on Church Street, Saturday Night, Prime Time– and we were one of two tables eating– THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN A SIGN!!!
It started going better, so we thought. Service was spotty. Drinks weren’t getting refilled and we weren’t being checked on Appetizers were ok (and I am giving them credit). We got the $ 11 sampler platter– everything tasted the same.
So about 45 minutes, our pizza arrived. We ordered three different pizzas for the different tastes among our group. When the server brought them out– he didn’t know which was which and you couldn’t tell– because they are stuffed. And the pizzas weren’t hot– usually the cheese will stream and burn your chin (which this isn’t a bad thing, just to let you know that the pizzas weren’t all the way yet). So about 5 minutes of swapping pizzas around, we finally began eating. Once I took my first bite– I noticed that the dough was raw on the top of the pizza. Yes sir– RAW DOUGH! We had a Chicago Pizza Expert in our party– who makes them every day, so we knew this isn’t how they were supposed to be. I went to ask for a manager. She came over and tried to tell us that it was the cheese– No, ma’am– We showed her the cheese, and the crust was not cooked at all.
Needless to say, I asked for a refund.
HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE, HORRIBLE FOOD and HORRIBLE SERVICE. But, we should have known!
We had to pay $ 52 for appetizers and drinks though– they didn’t comp that. They had to comp the meal– we didn’t eat it and it wasn’t cooked!
We will NEVER return to this sorry excuse for a pizza joint and sorry management!

First time in based on Unilocaler recommendations. Not much of a crowd, but so far so good. Caesar salad and meat lovers stuffed pizza. Eyeing the cannoli for dessert.
It was okay. Nothing spectacular. I think UNO is better.

After reading a bunch of the reviews, we figured we would try it before a Solar Bears game. Many of the negative reviews spoke to slow service. We didn’t find this at all. Then again, being good Chicago people, we called in our deep dish order ahead of time since it takes 45min-​1hr to cook.
First, it’s right at Church Street Station, behind Hamburger Mary’s. We arrived via Lymmo, then walked through the Sun Rail station to get there. We were promptly seated and let our server know a pie was ordered ahead of time. She quickly got our drinks and an appetizer order. Shortly after, the food arrived, and in perfect time.
We had cheese sticks and a cheese bread for the table. The cheese sticks were run of the mill frozen food. The cheese bread seemed a focaccia bread. It was average. The pizza we had was classic Chicago, sausage and mushroom. The crust was flaky, almost crispy. The cheese was properly done as was the sauce. It wasn’t too acidic or tasting of sugar or tomato paste. The slices were somewhat big, larger than we are used to in Chicago.
We paid the bill, and asked if they could hold our leftovers until after the game. They were happy to oblige and we got it after the game, all ready to go.
How we arrived at our rating–
Compared to Lou Malnati’s, Giordano’s and Gino’s East, not as good.
Compared to Giordano’s attempt in Orlando, better.
We had leftovers the next day, and I had one slice at about 2PM then ate nothing else the rest of the day… huge pizza slices.

This place is awful from the service to the food. As far as service goes, the staff pretty much keeps to themselves and is not knowledgable about the menu. When expressing myself about being unhappy each order for the table coming out at different times, the waitress got very defensive. I was told the smaller pizza came out first because it needed less time to cook then the bigger pizza. My response, then shouldn’t the bigger one have gone in first. I expressed that I came there to eat with my friends. I was disjointed that each of our orders came out at different times.
As far as the pizza, well, there was suppose to be three toppings inside. All I could see was cheese cheese and more cheese. We laughed at the quarter tiny mushrooms inside and was disappointed at the few pepperoni’s. If you want REAL good Chicago pizza, this is not it. Save your money, misery, and taste buds.
They are suppose to be opening in Maitland. Good luck with that! The Winter Park /​Maitland crowd will not like this given all the great pizza places in the area that offer the service that Winter Park /​Maitland is use to.

Loved this place as Eternal Tap. Sometimes it is all about location, location, location and dining out with the family needs to have some kind of draw. Like trains going by, outdoor seating, free WiFi for the teens and preteens that need to be wired in and the ambiance of a fire warming you up on a chilly afternoon. This place has all that and decent beer and a full liquor bar. We loved the deep dish pizza and the mozzarella sticks so I say go! Service was great ;).

Website and Unilocal says it open until 9pm. It’s 7:45pm right now and they’re closed with no warning or explanation. Disappointed and let down for my attempt at a first impression.

This might be the worst restaurant I’ve gone to twice. I got the 2 groupons and felt obligated to try it a second time and see if anything got better… it didn’t.
The first time the place was packed, the food took forever and it just wasn’t that good. The second time the place was empty (I guess everyone who wanted to try it did and didn’t come back) the food took a while and still wasn’t very good.
Props to our waitress for yelling at Tony the cook who thought it would be cool to bang on the bell they give him for 45 seconds ever 2 – 3 minutes (I am not kidding about this). That was the highlight of my meal.
At the end of the day it’s about the food, and there just wasn’t anything about this pizza that I really liked… save your time (it’s like 45 minutes for a stuffed pizza at least) and just go somewhere else.

Yum! I don’t know what traditional Chicago deep dish pizza tastes like, but the pizza here was amazing! My husband and I tried this hidden gem on a date night with a Groupon, and I was NOT disappointed.
As a pizza connoisseur, I found that this pizza was delicious, well-​made, had fresh ingredients, and a lot of the toppings in the pizza. We also had the cheesy garlic bread that was excellent! My sister-​in-​law has been begging for me to make a pizza cake, but instead, I will just bring her here for the pizza cake’s delicious (and more manageable) offspring.
Caveat: The waitress will warn you that the deep dish pizzas take 45 minutes to cook, so order before you go or be prepared to wait. (Would have been helpful information on their website or before they seated us). How can you enjoy deep dish and not have to go through this? Order the individual pie – still big enough for 2+ people, and takes half the time to cook!

In a nutshell — Good pizza with a side of dysfunctional.
Walking in, there was no one to greet us. After about five minutes, one of the waiters realized us standing there and asked if we had been helped. He then sat us himself, but forgot to tell the waitress in the section we were there.
Once she finally showed up, our waitress wasn’t too bad. But she was running around like a mad woman as her tables seemed to be all over the place. Then came in another waitress that had enough that night. She began swearing and talking about some table outside, telling another waiter how they were pissed as they hadn’t been checked on in awhile.
Pizza finally came and was delicious. In the mayhem of it all, I refilled our tables drinks. Usually, I wouldn’t do this, but no one was around and yolo.
So good pizza, but you may want to get it to-​go.

Forever searching for good Chicago Style pizza, we came with very high hopes that we would find it here, and as for the pizza itself I will add my thoughts on that at the end of the review.
It is a new establishment and with this comes challenges that need to be worked on and ironed out. We happened to wander in through the back the entrance where the Dessert Lady used to be and now is a bar. The main entrance is off the side and hard to find, however, no problem — I found it (the back, entrance I mean). The thing is that I didn’t know that this was the rear entrance and found the greeting a bit… well, surprised? Later we realized this happens often as a couple of other groups did the same thing. Note; put a stand up there since it is wide open in the building itself, and would help if we felt more welcome and less like we are surprising the staff.
Again, we understand the kinks that need to be worked out, but the staff seem overwhelmed, yet the establishment wasn’t packed. I had a couple of questions about the vegetable pizzas, but was very specific about ordering the simple vegetable over the other more extensive vegetable option because «I really don’t like broccoli on pizza» and ordered the regular.
Sitting where we were, we felt a tad forgotten… now being familiar with our beloved city’s pizza (yup Chicago girl here), i knew it was going to take a very long time, so I sat back and waited for the Greek salad we ordered to share. Honestly it was a very sad Greek Style salad, and the dressing was a balsamic vinaigrette. That is most definitely not the kind of dressing you put on a Greek Salad and I really don’t like balsamic either, but there was no server to be seen to ask if we could get the correct dressing. I was hungry so I ate the salad plain, without the dressing which made it basically lettuce, some tomatoes, onions (which were WAY too strong, the wrong type to throw on any salad) and a few olives and a wee bit of Feta thrown in.
When our pizza came, we happily dug in as we were most definitely starving (50 minutes after we ordered). As we were eating our vegetable pizza, we were finishing the first piece when I finally asked my hubby if the only thing in it were mushrooms. He confirmed this so we finally got our server and asked her if this was the correct pizza. It wasn’t. She confirmed that they had realized that it was the wrong one after they took our pizza to the people who ordered the mushroom one. Why weren’t we notified when they realized this? Were they hoping we wouldn’t notice?
They gave us the pizza we HAD ordered to go since we were tired and by then not hungry anymore. The next day we realized that our order was wrong anyhow — it had broccoli.
NOW FOR THE PLUS SIDE:
The pizza was fantastic. For a good stuffed pizza this is the place to go (I took out the broccoli in mine) — next time I will be VERY specific about what I do want on my pizza.
The server seemed new, and although these issues arose you could tell she genuinely was trying.
Will we be back? We sure will, and truly hope that I can update this to a perfect experience.

I am so hoping that Chicago’s Stuffed Pizza makes it. As expat Chicagoans, we are huge fans of the Chicago Pizza, and as far as that’s concerned, CSP is pretty darn close to the real thing. Especially when you are roughly 1200 miles away from the Windy City. Certainly we enjoy all things Chicago and have seen many places come and go in Florida.
At this point in time, the only thing that can save Chicago’s Stuffed Pizza is its management. So from a very biased customer, who wants to see you succeed, here’s some very simple yet effective changes that can help you get things moving.
It is quite obvious that the entrepreneurs have made a sizable investment by opening this place in its current location, and I’m sure at some point in time, sooner than later, a return on investment will be expected.
Let’s start with the easier things, and the most obvious: Attention to detail, usually the biggest challenges these places face is that the wait and kitchen staff know nothing about Chicago, they have no idea what we are expecting in terms of food and service and this is a huge disconnect, because more often than none, we come expecting some kind of replica of what we have experienced in the Windy City. Beyond a few posters on the wall and the menu, the experience falls flat.
First off, the staff apparently doesn’t listen to the customers, I keep reading reviews and comments of incorrect orders and other communication issues.
Also, most of us know that a deep dish or stuffed pizza takes a reasonable amount of time to prepare, don’t shy away from this, tackle it head on and let the customers know that it will take time to prepare, — Menu up selling opportunity here– offer appetizers, take the drink order, be nice and attentive. Clients will definitely appreciate it and will be more inclined to wait for the pizza if they are told ahead of time.
Back to attention to detail, listen to the orders, get it right from the start, come back often to make sure all is well.
One last thing, typically, mediocre businesses don’t make it past the first few months– embrace excellence. Worst case scenario… you’ll build yourself a spotless reputation and that is priceless.
Although our experience was not quite as good as we expected, like I mentioned before, the pie comes close to the real thing, and the place definitely has potential. On behalf of your fans… please don’t fail us.

The starting point is that we are a family from Chicago and love stuffed pizza. This restaurant is not easy to find. They needed much bigger signs to direct folks. We had a terrific server. The cheesy garlic bread was the best in Orlando. The stuffed pizza was pretty good. A little heavy on the oregano. The cheese blend was spot on. In my opinion is better than Giordano’s. The facility location is going to be a challenge for this business to succeed. We will be back.

Orlando’s newest pie maker, Chicago’s Stuffed Pizza is here to further the great pizza pie debate, and serve up some pretty good food too. The name of the restaurant was specifically chosen to represent their mission, which is to bring that same great style of pizza you will find in the greater Chicago area to Orlando. After all, we do have Giordano’s in Orlando, but as of yet, no Nancy’s.so let the debates begin.
In addition to huge stuffed pizza, Chicago’s has an offering of appetizers like mozzarella sticks, breaded mushrooms, fried zucchini, and even fried calamari. You can also order a variety of pastas like fettuccine, spaghetti and lasagna and they have a decent sandwich menu too. Some of the sandwiches include the classic Italian beef, Philly cheese steak, and chicken Parmesan to name a few.
We ordered the fried zucchini for a snack, since our pie was going to take 30 minutes to bake. These were pretty good, especially dipped in the marinara sauce, and the first time I’ve had zucchini fried. Since I was dining with a friend from Chicago, he insisted we try out the Italian beef combo sandwich with beef, sausage, and Giardiniera peppers. Although it was really good, he was let down by the use of ciabatta bread instead of a hoagie roll.
We ordered a medium special pizza with sausage, mushrooms, green peppers and onions. For $ 23.95, this pie sliced up into 6 slices, and was impressively massive.
After sharing our appetizer and sandwiches, we could barely finish one slice of this pie. It was delicious and tasty, but very filling, and my Chicago friend approved of this pie very much.

Ya’ll! I went here with a Chicago native and he approved! And well… of course I approved, it’s pizza!
Ha, no really tho, it was AMAZING! It was legit deep dish Chicago pizza from the crust to the overwhelming (amazing) cheese, and sauce on top! I am truly 4 star «Yay! I’m a fan.» status.
They are in that «not so easy to spot» location on church street. The bar with the entrance on the train tracks next to Hamburger Mary’s. You can also enter in the front doors right by Church St. Tavern. They have various spots to post up, in the general dining area, at the bar or near the pizza kitchen (where the magic happens) or outside on their porch. Do yourself a favor and check this spot out next time you are lookin’ for somewhere to grub downtown.
They are brand new so the service is pretty top notch as they are trying to gain some recognition, props for that! They want to be the home to all Chicago team games so if you love you some Bulls, Bears, Cubs, White Sox, or Blackhawks, this spot is for you. Beer, wings, pizza and sports. Make it happen!
We went with a small pizza to share between the two of us and it was plenty! Could have easily fed another person. They are so thick! They don’t skimp here and I adore that. Please keep in mind they are true Chicago stuffed so if you are in a hurry, go for a personal size as it takes at least 30 min to cook a larger one. WORTH IT! We went for the Special with Sausage, Mushroom, Green Peppers and Onions. Absolutely delicious! They do have thin crust but I couldn’t believe anyone would opt for that when you could get STUFFED!
We began with a house salad since it would be a while for our pizza and it was good, nothing exceptional but who cares, we were there for pizza!
For a salad and small pizza it was under $ 30 — perfect for 2 for lunch.
Guys, it’s legit. Give it a shot, i promise you won’t regret it. I mean… check out my pics… cheese heaven!