Professor Pizza - Old Town — Restaurant in Chicago

Comical TL;DR - Roots is the reason people say no good Pizza place has a large/diverse menu.

Actual TL;DR - It's not bad pizza by itself, but it's most certainly not worth the price. Monkey Bread is awful. Only order mozz sticks if dining in. Garlic Parmesan sauce is fire though.

Alright so full disclosure this is definitely part anger-rant, part review. Part anger-rant because I had accidentally ordered pickup from this second city location instead of the south loop dearborn location; this was 100% my fault but my wounded pride still partially wants to blame it on the app not highlighting location selection very well. I called ahead to ask if the Second City location could swap to delivery, but understandably they have two separate systems/drivers between their location and Dearborn, so I'd still need to pick it up; I had no problem with this and don't blame anyone besides myself for ordering to the wrong location. This meant that by the time I picked it up, my order had already been sitting for 15-20 minutes.

The Order: 16" Pizza Mozzarella Sticks Monkey Bread Dreamsicle Pie 1 Roots Root Beer

The Good: Garlic Parm Sauce is heckin' delicious

The Bad: I never received the Root beer I ordered. Obviously should have double checked/noticed this, but considering that I called ahead and they knew to expect me, I kind of assumed they'd have everything ready for me. Mozz sticks are /horribly/ overpriced. You get 5 sticks for $12... yah... Container of marinara inside the Mozz Sticks box was not sealed all the way, so by the time we got home we discovered all 5 sticks were soggy and covered in lukewarm marinara. Monkey Garlic Bread was just Monkey bread. Roommates and I were slightly torn on the level of disappointment with this, but I thought it tasted like what I imagine the bread Frodo and fellowship ate on their way to Mordor i.e. dry, thick, and with little to no flavor. Pizza even after being reheated in an oven at home was equivalent to a tostinos pizza from the freezers section of a supermarket. The cheese slides off all in once piece, and the flavor tasted like the inside of a hot pocket but admittedly with actual meat. The Pie was one of the worst disappointments. It was about the same size as 1 1/2 cheesecake slices. It had a soggy crust that was only about 1 cm thick, and 3/4 of the pie height was straight whipped cream. Oh and this was $7 No heat lamp/warming setup for pickup, so all orders were sitting next to the host counter growing cold.

So why 2 stars? Because no one reads 1 star reviews, and because this place is probably not completely awful if...

I stumbled upon the dine-in location of Professor Pizza purely by accident. I didn't even know they had one, but I had to try it out after having great takeout pizza at their west loop kitchen.

While getting takeout pizza is how most people do it, there's something special about getting it fresh out of the pizza oven that you just can't replicate reheating it at home. So I was excited to try it.

I previously had the grandma, NY, and tavern styles so this time I wanted to try out the Detroit style and see how well they do it.

Even though I was the only one of three customers there at the time, it took exactly 59 minutes for the pizza to arrive. Now to be fair, the menu does warn you that it can be 45 minutes to get your pizza, especially the deep dish options. And, sure an hour sounds like a long time, but last week I got pizza from Five Squared and it took two weeks for it to arrive. That's not an exaggeration or figure of speech, by the way. It literally took two weeks from the time I ordered it to the time it was ready for me to pickup.

So I guess I can manage an hour.

As expected, it arrived piping hot, with the gooey cheese melting all over in a big goopey mess. I actually needed to start eating it with a knife and fork, a bit more similar to a square shaped Chicago deep dish than what I think of as a Detroit pizza. I think the bottom could have benefited from a more aggressive fry char to help hold it together. It was too soggy on the bottom to pick up and eat. But I love the toppings. I got my go-to Professor Pizza toppings of chili bomba, ricotta, rosemary, hot honey and red sauce. They all work well together.

I've had all but the Sicilian style from them now. I think their tavern is still my favorite, followed by their NY style, but I've enjoyed all four to varying degrees.

I had a bit of sticker shock when I saw a single pie ended up being over $50. But their Detroit pie is enormous. You get six huge slices that are really more like 12 normal slices. I had two and a half slices before I tapped out and took the rest to go. So I take some solice in the fact that the $50 will probably be an additional lunch and dinner.

Professor Pizza is at the vanguard of the modern pizza movement in Chicago. Yo can't go wrong with takeout, but if you have the patience, it's definitely worth trying one of their pizzas dining in to get it exactly as God (or the...

I felt the need to leave this review because of an odd situation that unfolded this evening. My rating is unfortunately lower than this place probably deserves, but the mishandling of reservations and lack of transparency in our experience left a negative impression that might ultimately deter us from considering a return visit.

We arrived at around 5 PM tonight and we did not make a reservation (nothing was available until 8 PM when I looked this morning). Inside, there were 3 parties seated and the rest of the restaurant was completely empty. The host stand had a few employees hovered around it and when we asked for a table, we were told that they had no open tables for walk-ins at all, for the entire night. We asked if the empty bar seats were available (like 10ish empty seats) and we were denied.

So, we went back outside to their patio area to decide on a plan b. We finally settled on takeout from Professor, and then waited another 45 mins for our order. We spent about 1.5 hrs in total sitting outside of the restaurant and must have seen 10+ parties walk up and get turned away. All the while, the dining room remained nearly empty and several staff members wandered around without customers to serve. Each person coming back outside was just as puzzled and frustrated as we were that the restaurant couldn’t accommodate a walk-in, when it appeared that there were tables and staff readily available. In that 1.5 hrs, we could have eaten, paid, and left. We decided to give them our business anyways but I don’t feel they deserved it. Maybe there was something else going on tonight that wasn’t communicated to us.

The pizza was really good, even though it was somewhat cold by the time we were able to get back to the hotel with it. It’s a shame because we really would have preferred to enjoy it fresh. I hope this isn’t a common situation for them and that they can work out the walk in situation to avoid disappointing so many potential...