Pizza Papalis

Bottom line: three stars for the pizza, four stars for the rest.
Ok, with that out of the way, I saw one of the previous reviews proclaiming that Pizza Papalis has the «best pizza in Toledo.» My first thought was: «Sister, you must not eat much pizza in T-​Town.»
I’ve been here couple/​three times, and I’m just not that impressed by the pie. The Chicago style is pretty decent, IF that’s your thing. It’s filling, and it’s made with tasty ingredients. In general, these pies tend to be expensive, BUT, if you take into account «grams of pizza per dollar,» the cost is probably about average. I’m not crazy about Chicago style pizza, but it definitely fits the bill when I’m in the mood for something a little different. In general, this is a good product.
In terms of taste and value, the thin crust (not really that thin) is actually well below average for Toledo. I’d skip it.
The atmosphere is pretty cool; it’s just what you’d expect from a nicely repurposed building in downtown Toledo. Like a lot of the new businesses downtown, Pizza Papalis really shines in this area!
The waitstaff has always been very friendly and attentive, especially the knowledgable bartenders. Our waitresses have always warned us about the wait-​time on the pizza. I’ve found it to be a longer than expected wait for the thin crust, and a (pleasantly) shorter than expected wait for the Chicago style.
Although I’m not super crazy about the pizza here, it’s certainly one option for pizza in downtown Toledo. It’s also a great place to bring the family after a Mud Hens game. Fun.

the wait was very long, turned out there was a miscommunication between servers and kitchen staff but it was well worth it. manager brought our pizza out and personally apologized for the long wait (since we pre-​ordered our deep dish). pizza was delicious (and free) and the manager was very kind.

Best pizza in Toledo! The deep style pies are amazing. The weigh about 10 lbs too which tells you are getting your $ worth. Great place to go before or after a game for sure.

I love the Chicago style pizza Lunch special pizza is really good and a great deal but the service at lunch time has declined, I used to have the individual pizza in five minutes of ordering and last couple times it was at least a 20 minute wait so it makes it hard if you are there for lunch and have to rush back to the office. Staff is always great. We like to phone in our order when there is about 10 minutes left in a hockey game or the top of the 9^th of a baseball game and the order is usually ready in a few minutes after we get there.
Regular drinks are good and reasonably priced. Don’t waste your money on the shareable drinks. Three of us shared one of the 60 oz drinks a couple weeks ago (they are suppose to be for four) and none of us felt a think and it was really sweet, was like drinking Kool-​Aid, just order individual drinks instead.
I like that they deliver downtown at lunch time (IIRC for free) and the chocolate chip cookies are amazing.

This is a popular place to go if you’re coming from a ball game or craving a deep dish and you’re in the downtown area. It’s your average deep dish and the ingredients are fresh but they are sometimes lacking, so don’t be afraid to pay more for extra to get the perfect amount. The atmosphere is family friendly and a great place to unwind to escape Toledo for awhile.
They also have a ‘deep dish’ cookie for dessert, I highly recommend ordering it a la mode.

So we spent $ 30 for a thin crust pizza and garlic cheese bread after the game for take out. The garlic cheese bread was disgusting. It was like someone took uncooked pizza crust, covered it with cheese and put it under the broiler. The crust was not edible. The thin crust pizza was only a little better. We reheated it the next day and it was much better after the crust had been crisped up. This was a big waste of money!

Started with a flatbread. When waiter asked how it was, we said it could have stayed in the oven longer. He told us no that’s the way they are, a lot of people think that. Did say the wings and breadsticks were very good. Wish he would have spoke up prior.
Pizza is okay, but over priced. Did I mention we drove 2 hours from Battle Creek, MI? Definitely not worth the drive. Must be better pizza places in Toledo.

Actually dined here 12÷27÷15 after the Harlem Globe Trotters game at Huntington Center. Never having been here before, I really loved the amazing warehouse building with the soaring ceilings and exposed brick, really fantastic interior. If we only had cool buildings like this out west. Really love that Toledo is utilizing these amazing downtown spaces to create cool restaurants and bars. Way to go Glass City!
Not surprising, there was a 45 minute wait which turned out to be in our favor as this establishment has the excellent concept of being able to order your pie at the counter in the back as you wait. Brilliant! So after we were seated, our pizza was delivered about 5 minutes later. Score!
I’m not a fan of Chicago deep dish, but was pleasantly surprised at the nice flavors and the chewy, but tender crust. The sauce had a solid tomato tang and wasn’t too salty. Overall a pretty good pizza.
We were seated in the back bar area on the first level and found our server to be friendly, helpful, and added a nice touch of good service to our experience.

After having a bad service experience the first time we decided to give this place another try. Mainly because the pizza was so good and the manager cared enough to respond to our review. This time we had the very best service and pizza. We were greeted immediately, asked where we would like to sit, and our server Shea (sp?) was friendly. She introduced herself and was knowledgeable about the menu. She kept our drinks full the entire time. Once again the pizza was delicious. It is truly the best pizza in Toledo. I recommend not going during peak hours because the line will be out the door. But that’s because it’s that good. I am glad I did not let one bad experience keep us from going back. Looking forward to many more years of dining here.

Went here for dinner with my boyfriend and best friend and got great service by the bar area. Pizza took a while to make but it was very worth it. Tasty, full of flavor, and the perfect size for the 3 of us. We ordered a medium and took one slice home. Our server was very helpful and even informed us before ordering that the pizza would take about a half hour to make and to see if we were alright with that. Greatly enjoyed our experience.
Then went there for a work lunch and they have a great work lunch menu that’s really affordable and convenient. I got a personal deep dish pizza and a side salad. Heads up, the salad was huge for a side salad and came out before my pizza so it was more like an appetizer salad. But the pizza was very good and our server was super patient with our giant group. Great place!

We had excellent service by Andrea! She was readily prepared with our requests! Excellent service and excellent food!

Known for their deep dish. It takes 40 min to make but worth it. Bring friends and lots of time on your hands. Closes earlier than others in the area. So don’t expect them to be open after a Walleye or Mudhens game.
Update:We had the VIP deep dish.

These guys are wonderful! My son is in the USCG stationed in Toledo, I’m in California and I haven’t had my son home for his birthday for four years. Today was his birthday and he was on duty for the weekend. I wanted to send him and his co-​workers dinner. Amy at Pizza Papalis went above and beyond to help me get these guys some amazing food. We put together a Meat Eaters Deluxe Deep dish, a thin crust pepperoni, sodas and a Happy Birthday 10″ deluxe deep dish Chocolate Chip Cookie. The guys loved it! They were blown away by how much food there was and I quote, they told me, «IT WAS AWESOME!!!» This made my day and my son’s! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

The atmosphere and the location are great.
The pizza? Well…
First off, the sauce is pretty good… I’ll give ‘em that. But pizza-​wise, it’s downhill from there.
Their Chicago style pizza? Take a loaf of bread, throw some cheese on it, cover it with pizza sauce. Bake it for 45 minutes, and there ya go.
The crust on their thin crust pizza? If it’s not frozen I’ll eat my hat. It’s perfectly round, has a seem around the circumference, and breaks apart when you eat it.
I might eat here if I’m with a group, or I might have a drink here (excellent bar staff), but if I want good pizza, there are about 25 places in Toledo where I’ll go first.

For my final Friday working downtown, I walked to Pizza Papalis for lunch. The restaurant was moderately busy when I arrived around just after noon, however I was pleasantly surprised to be seated straight away. Another pleasant surprise, was my table on the bar side of the first floor, with the windows up and the screens down, giving me unfettered access to the beautiful weather, sights, and sounds on North Huron Street! Glancing at the lunch menu, I selected the baked mostaccioli with meat sauce and an iced tea. Before tax and tip, my bill was $ 8.99, which feels like a really good price for lunch downtown.
The downstairs bar section of the restaurant was attractively decorated with many signs showing the various libations available, and the granite top bar looked absolutely gorgeous! A couple of flat screen televisions hung from the walls, and were turned to different channels for the enjoyment of the patrons. Importantly, all had the closed captioning turned on, which was a nice touch. However for me, the best part of the restaurant was the fact that the ‘outside wall’ on my booth was just a floor-​to-​ceiling window screen. It almost felt like I was having lunch directly on the sidewalk on North Huron Street, but without all the sun!
When it arrived, the baked mostaccioli was very good. The meat sauce had an excellent flavour, and the dish was baked with the perfect amount of mozzarella cheese! All too often pizzerias either go overboard with the cheese (which then melts into a nearly impermeable layer) or skimp on the cheese, but Pizza Papalis nailed it perfectly in the Goldilocks zone with just the right amount. I also appreciated how the waitress brought me several tea refills without me ever needing to ask.
For good food at an equally good price, great service, and a fantastic atmosphere, I rate Pizza Papalis as Very Good, and will definitely be returning!

The wife wanted Chicago deep dish pizza as soon as we got to the Midwest. Toledo isn’t Chicago, but the pizza was good.
We ordered a deep dish medium with chicken on it. It was enormous, dense, and delicious. We had to take half of it home. We also ordered the breadsticks, which were fine. They came with a decent marinara sauce and a gross orange cheese sauce. They’re on the side.
You’re going to need to order appetizers because the pizza takes about 45 minutes to cook. That’s how long it takes to make right, so just get used to it.
Parking is tough. There’s a garage across the street that charged me $ 3 on a Sunday (not a game day), but we had to climb six flights of stairs after eating all that pizza.
A decent beer selection, a friendly waitress, and a nice old fashioned pizzeria décor make this a place I’ll come back to.

Pete the bartender is AMAZING!!! He made our day!!! He put our bumper sticker up from where we are from. It’s a bumper sticker from «hair of the dog» English pub from Palm Springs, Ca. It meant SO much to us. Come to find out, Pete also lived and worked in Palm Springs at one time and used to frequent that bar. Of course we all hit it off and we had a GREAT time!!! Next time we go there, I want to eat! We only did drinks! Anyhow, Pete really helped us have a great time and I hope that he’s there again the next time we’re in town!

Pizza Papalis’s Chicago-​style pies are a relative rarity in the pizza world, and they’re serious about making them that way. That said, there are some key elements that leave much to be desired.
Pizza Papalis specializes in big, hearty, Chicago pizzas. Each of the pizzas my family ordered was several pounds, between the heavy sauce, the thick cheese, and the heavy crust. That said, I wouldn’t call the sauce particularly memorable or rich (even though it tops the pizza!). For that matter, their crust leaves much to be desired. I can almost taste that it’s cornmeal based, as it should be, but it still gets cardboard-​ish in the end, with diminishing crunch and interior softness.
Toppings are kind of bland, and not nearly as present as they should be. If this is hearty pizza, where’s the meatiness and zesty flavors that belong in pepperoni and Italian sausage? The sauce, too, was lacking in both the sweetness and heat that I like, which was especially unfortunate, given how sauce-​heavy Chicago pizza is.
All of this said, it wasn’t bad. I liked how well it held together, rather than collapsing off itself once cut like some kind of casserole. I liked how they meant «extra cheese» when they said «extra cheese.» I also really appreciate how they held onto our pizzas and kept them piping hot for us despite us coming in nearly half an hour after closing (we’d called them to let them know and they said it was no trouble, but still, that was a lifesaver around 11:30 when my family was hungry and circumstances kept keeping us from leaving with time to spare.
Pizza Papalis is decent stuff and can feed a hungry crowd, even later on in the evening. It’s not great, but it’s not bad, either. You can do a lot worse in Toledo, which is sadly lacking in truly great pizza joints.

I love this place. I recently visited my alma mater UT and had to come here before I went home.
Their deep dish pizza is thie thing to get. It takes about 45 minutes to cook, so come prepared knowing what you want to eat.
The pizzas are huge. Know that when they say the large feeds 4 – 5, it really means 5 – 6 unless you are REALLY hungry.
The sauce is perfect and the crust gets a good crunch on it around the edges.
What’s better is its right next to Mudhens Stadium and perfect for gametime.
There might be an element of nostalgia for me, but if you are in Toledo, its definitely worth your time to stop in and relax and get some deep dish.

Ate here for the 1 first time today (1-​18-​2015). Just okay pizza. My wife & I had the Chicago style meat lovers & our kids had a thin cheese & pepperoni. We also had fries, which were fine. This place is really nothing to brag about. Service & cleanliness were pretty good. Way over priced for their quality. Probably 2 trips in 1, our first & our last! :-(