Bronko's of Cicero — Restaurant in Cicero

We've been sampling the restaurants of Cicero lately and this one was a winner. Bronko's is on the north side of Jackson Street on the corner of Byron Street. It's just west of 10 West, Erika's Place and Sullivan Hardware. Cicero offers a decent bit of street parking for their establishments, so spots are aplenty between both Jackson as well as Byron.

The restaurant isn't terribly large for dining as I would guess they have maybe 7 to 10 tables that could each accommodate 2 to 4 people. A large group had taken the majority of these tables when we arrived just before 6 on a Saturday night, but we were fortunate to snag a couple of smaller ones to combine for our party of 5. They seem to do a steady carryout business as we noticed a lot of traffic coming in for pick-up, including some folks still in swim trunks presumably making the short walk from their boat on Morse Reservoir. They appeared to only have 3 people working, 2 working the register and navigating the dining room in addition to 1 gentleman working the kitchen. They were all pleasant in the exchanges we had even with how busy they were. Sorry we didn't remember the girl's name wearing the Duran Duran t-shirt that served us because she was very good at what she does.

My daughter ordered a Personal 7" Thin Crust Cheese pizza (6.50), which she said she liked and would order again. It's not a thin and crispy if that's your thing, but I'm not much for thin in general anyway. My son and his girlfriend tried a Medium 12" Hand Tossed Two Meat Topping with pepperoni and sausage (19.00) while my wife and I split a Medium 12" Hand Tossed Three Standard Topping with mushroom, spinach and jalapeños (18.25). Both of these were awesome! First, the hand tossed crust isn't deep-dish, but it isn't the standard thin hand-tossed you get at a lot of places. It's got a little thickness to it and a real nice crunch with each bit. I am a bread/crust man and I loved it. Second, I really liked the tomato sauce they use and it was generously applied throughout the pizza, which is another thing I love in a pizza. I need a good bit of sauce or otherwise it's just fancy cheesebread. Third, the cheese and toppings were piled high onto the crust and sauce. An excellent blend of flavor in every bite.

I had wondered about ordering one of the appetizers I read about in the reviews or even ordering the Large pizza, but I am glad we didn't as we took home about half of our veggie and a slice of the meat (my son is a teenage boy, so there's that). And to clarify, their slices are not traditional triangles nor squares as you may commonly see. They do 1 cut to split the pie in half and then 4 or 5 cuts perpendicular to that cut to create essentially 1-2" wide pizza strips. I actually really liked eating the pizza that way.

They do apparently sell a decent bit of chicken as well, but I can't imagine not ordering pizza if I come here. Be aware if you order carryout or get a box for your leftovers, our box had a coupon on the top to cut out that said if you collect 20 of them you are entitled to a free popular combo pizza of your choice. So just another incentive beyond the pizza to become a...

I wanted a good thin crust pizza, you know one that may be a little greasy but flavorful nonetheless. We searched up and found out about Broncos Pizza in Cicero, it was only about 20 minutes away from my home so DH said yea why not, as we'll be starting a detox here soon. So he placed the order right before a left home and headed out. He picked up a large pepperoni pizza for the kids, I don't eat pork and oddly they didn't have a meat substitute that I "thought" I would be interested in, I could typically go for chicken sausage or even beef and onions but those weren't options so I went for a personal size cheese pizza and he went ahead and got the personal size BBQ chicken pizza, he also snagged a side of cheese curds. My cheese pizza was all right, it was cheesy, didn't seem very thin though, the kids enjoyed their pepperoni pizza just okay claiming that it was a little on the salty side, the cheese curds were all right, of course by the time they made it back home the cheese had solidified. Would you know the star of the whole doggone show was that barbecue chicken pizza OMG it was so good! Hubs was gracious enough to swap out a slice of his for a slice of my period. I was thoroughly impressed and if I ever return that is exactly what I would get, in fact the entire family wanted the barbecue...

Bronko's came recommended from a friend of a friend so we decided to give them a try. The pizza is fairly expensive but boutique pizza usually is. We put together an order and called in. We were told it would be 45-50 minutes but we live 40 minutes away so the time wasn't an issue. When we finally arrived (50 minutes after placing our order) we were informed that the pizzas were going into the oven soon and that "They got really busy after taking our phone order." After another 40 minutes, we finally received our $70 order without as much as an apology and headed home. When we opened the packages, we discovered that we didn't get everything we paid for. I called to inform them, and their offer was for me to drive another 40 minutes to retrieve what they had forgotten. I'm extremely disappointed with the quality and the lack of service I received. Needless to say, I won't return or recommend...