Giordano's — Restaurant in Dr. Phillips

We have always been a huge fan of Chicago deep dish style pizza. Roughly 20 years ago, Uno's was the only game in town for this in the south florida metro area. Sadly, their quality diminished greatly over the years, and it was hard to find real good traditional deepdish.

Well, I finally got around to trying Giordano's in Orlando, which is a chain based on the original iconic Chicago pizza restaurant.

We arrived at 5pm and found there was plenty of parking and very friendly waitstaff eager to quickly seat us.

Our waitress, Ouissam, was very cheerful, friendly, accommodating, efficient, and overall amazing.

We ordered the chicken chopped salad, minestrone soup, and a large Chicago classic deep dish (pepperoni, peppers, onions). The deep dish takes 45 minutes to make, which is 100% normal. The salad and soup came out quickly and was served perfectly. Soup was good and fresh, the salad was very good with freshly made chicken and excellent homemade dressing.

The pizza arrived right at the quoted 45-minute mark and came out looking like it could feed 4-6 people easily. My first concern was whether it was real deep dish (ie: 90% cheese, sauce and toppings with a thin base crust) or imitation deep dish like other places that have a massive thick bottom crust and a small amount of cheese and toppings. Well, Giordano's hit a GRAND SLAM. The crust was cracker thin at the bottom and had literally almost 3 full inches of cheese, toppings, and sauce. Each slice weighed about a pound. The first slice pulled apart with strings of cheese 2 feet long. This is not an exaggeration.

The pizza was very fresh and flavorful with perfect seasoning and no unnecessary nonsense. The crust was very crispy and tasted like a cracker (the correct Chicago style). My only critique is that the pizza wasn't piping hot throughout. The cheese and toppings were definitely fully cooked but only the outer portion of the pizza was "super hot". The rest of the pizza was warm. Not sure how this happened but it was still VERY good and easily the best deep dish I've had in South Florida. Total price was $77 for the large chicken salad, large pizza (roughly 7 lbs), soup, and 2 soft drinks. Reasonable price per calorie and given how much pizza we took home.

Our waitress, Ouissam, made us perfect Arnold Palmers and was an absolute gem throughout the entire meal. I feel the need to reinforce how good she was because decent waitstaff are very hard to come across these days, and she really knocked it out of the park.

The atmosphere of the restaurant is Chicago classic with plenty of TV's and adequate seating. There wasn't really much else to it. Some of the tables were still dirty but nothing out of the ordinary.

Overall, this was an excellent experience. If you're looking for really good deep dish pizza at an affordable price with an amazing waitress, please check this place out if you're in the...

When we arrive to Giordano's like we have over the last 15 years we were excited to be there since we typically have mostly good service. The food is always exceptional which is the reason why every time we visit Florida we come back. Last time service was not so good but I figured every business has its ups and downs so I didn't say anything about it. On this visit I was excited like usual because I absolutely love their deep dish pizza. When we arrived it took a few minutes for them address us to be seated no. They were busy so I had no issue with that. The young lady that went to feed us was attempting to put us at a table in the center of the restaurant in my wife definitely does not like to sit in the center of the restaurant so we requested a booth. She seemed reluctant to sit us in a booth because she said they were reserved for larger parties. Since we were a group of five I didn't know how much larger it needed to be but she was able to seat us in a half booth with two chairs and a chair put on the end. We went along with this with no issue since it was better than where we were originally took. Our waiter Adrian came over to assist us and was very accommodating in his conversation and his level of customer service. We ordered to deep dish pizzas... One was supposed to have chicken, spinach and feta... With the other being a small deep dish with pepperoni and feta. I was advised everything would be taking care of and even had him to put us in an appetizer of fried mozzarella triangles. Everything seemed to be pretty good until we got our food and found out that the large deep dish contained no spinach and had sausage with feta.. since sausage always gives my wife heartburn I explained this to Adrian when I saw him again since another waiter was the one who brought the food. The only offer that was given was either to remake the pizza with a thin crust. Since it was already a little late and we were hungry for being at SeaWorld all day I just didn't want to argue about the fact that I was now having to give my pepperoni pizza to my family and was forced to eat the pizza with sausage. The waiter explained that he accidentally hit the wrong button when he put in the pizza since sausage and chicken we're right next to each other. Not trying to get anything for free but I really did not want to have to pay for the sausage pizza since I was going to be the one ending up eating most of it. This is not my typical response to this restaurant nor is it their typical outcome but I was highly disappointed this was the solution.

UPDATE- I spoke to one of the managers who was very attentive to my complaint. He was very generous in his assistant and has definitely satisfied the situation. As I explained to him, while this situation has disappointed me it will not stop me from going back to the restaurant the next time...

An absolute disappointment for the approximate $175 bill and it was such a bummer. We ended up throwing away most of the food. Save yourself some money and order Domino's or Papa Johns instead.

My family and I were staying at the Wyndham Grand Orlando Resort and we needed a lot of food to satisfy multiple adults and kids. Pizza is always a good option and I like trying different Chicago Style deep-dish pizzas. When I saw there was the famous Giordano's nearby and they delivered, I began ordering.

We ordered a deep-dish pepperoni and garlic pizza, a traditional thin crust pepperoni pizza, a traditional thin crust pineapple pizza, and two orders of wings -- one tossed in buffalo sauce and the other in BBQ sauce. We also got a free order of cheesy garlic bread using a coupon code.

When our food was delivered, the boxes felt damp and I could tell our order had been sitting out for an extended period of time. When we got back to our room and began opening the boxes, that's when we began to realize this was not going to be a good dinner.

The wings were both cold and naked. Yes, the sauces were provided but they were just put in a little cup on the side. I ordered two things of wings -- one BBQ and one buffalo. Instead of giving us one box of wings with BBQ sauce and one box with buffalo sauce, we were given two container cups in each box that had the different sauces. It just seemed like the staff lacked any sort of common sense with how to build the order. Sadly, the wings were the best part of the order.

The deep-dish pizza was a big disappointment for me. I don't know how, but the crust's consistency was similar to stale bread. I literally had to choke down each bite because it was just so dry and dense in a bad way. There was minimal red sauce and it lacked flavor overall. I opted to have extra garlic on this pizza and I'm not sure how or why it was so pungent, but it was not good. I've had a lot of Chicago style deep-dish pizzas and this was the worst I've had.

The traditional thin crust was no better either. Kids typically each pizza regardless of the quality but our kids barely touched the pizza after their first slice. These pizzas lacked flavor and the crust was dry and dense and in a bad way. Even though the dough was dry and dense, the bottom of the crust was soggy in some areas. They were just very unpleasant.

This was our first big family dinner on the first day of our vacation and it was the worst meal we had over a ten day vacation. I do not recommend this spot for anyone looking to get a high quality pizza. I should have ordered Domino's. The quality of the food would have been better and I would have saved...