Lou Malnati's Pizzeria — Restaurant in Evanston Township

Sunday evening my cousin flew in from Virginia for an authentic Chicago experience. Of course being a native of Chicago I took her to the best place I knew for her first taste of a deep dish pizza! When we arrived we were immediately greeted and seated. When our waiter came to the table he greeted us with his name, Daniel, and asked what we wanted to drink. He was right to the point, but it was initially OK because we knew what we came for. We started with Buffalo wings as an appetizer. As we ate we overheard Daniel's greeting to another table, that didn't look like us, more upbeat "welcome to Lou Malnati's, my name is Daniel and I'll be serving you". Now that was the greeting we would have liked to have given my cousin's first time. It was when the plate was completely empty that Daniel decided to come back and check if everything tasted good. We told him it was great and then he left the empty plates to take the order of the new guest. I asked for more water and he took my cup with the plates, but never returned with it! Now our pizza comes out he offered to cut the first slice, great! I finish my first slice STILL NO WATER. When I finally get his attention, I ask for oregano AND MY WATER because the pizza lacked flavor and I was particularly thirsty at this point. Daniel repeated my request and aggrivatadly confirmed it was on its way. We watched him be attentive to the surrounding tables that did not look like us, eventually he returned with my water and dashed off again. I got his attention again and requested the oregano. He said "yea your water" and pointed at it like duh it's right there where I repeated my request for the oregano. Again with aggravation he said "yeah its on it's way". He returned shortly after with a story that they had to go into wayyy back to get in from storage because they were out. We were finally done and waited 20 additional minutes for our check while we watched him serve the other tables and close out their check. Once I got the check I asked him to stay close. We were tired of waiting to say the least. I put my card in and Daniel took it away. He returned promptly. As I was signing the check Daniel circled our table 3 TIMES. We hadn't seen him at our table this much all evening. The third time he saw I signed it and just stood there and tried to grab it from me! I said wait, I got to tip you! I intended on giving a cash tip. Daniel apologized, saying sorry I'm just frustrated! Frustrated?! Over what? With who? We are frustrated! Poor service to remember,...

The pizza was practically a 5, deep dish Malnati Chicago Classic. The lip service a 4, the service a 1. Ordered online, where they ask for make/model/color of car and show up a few minutes before the 6:10 scheduled pickup. Sit behind a double parked person. Around 6:15 were asked what our order is. We describe it and confirmation #. We are asked about a coke and a dessert we didn’t order, just a classic and cookies. A few minutes later another person comes out and apologizes saying they messed up the order and mixed it up with another customer, they clarified our order and said they would rush our order to be ready in 14 minutes and refund our charge. The street cleared and we pulled into a pick-up spot. The first person returned and apologized, saying it was busy and that the order had been overridden. They told us we’d get a pizza but we’d have to pay for the coke and tiramisu. We told them we didn’t order a coke and ordered cookies for dessert and the other person told us the order would be fixed and for free. We sit until 7pm, watching a steady stream of people arrive and leave with pizza. If we don’t leave now we will be late, so I go in and tell the person at the cash register, “mr coke”, to cancel my order and refund me because we were going to be late. They fumbled looking for my order that they knew was messed up. The person who seemed to be a manager, standing next to them said we’d have to pay for, and I cut him off saying if they said coke I’d lose it. Then the “rush/free” person appeared saying my pizza had just finished, ending over a pizza and cookie box. The manager (?) said cookies, not coke. I was incredulous and pointed out how long I’d been waiting. He and the cashier tried to imply I wasn’t waiting in the right spot (@where were you waiting?”) I pointed out that two employees, including the cashier, had talked to me at that spot. Manager: well you’ll get the pizza free. Couldn’t care less. Terrible. When they discovered they messed up almost an hour early they should have put in a manual order and rushed it, with a comp or discount. Instead I’d had to pay for 3rd party brand...

The food here was so terrible that I felt compelled to write a review. My boyfriend and I ordered a medium thin crust pizza and boneless wings, and my boyfriend ordered a sweet tea. The sweet tea tasted like it was made before sugar was invented. We asked for another sweet tea (assuming that we had been given the unsweetened tea by mistake) but yet again my boyfriend’s taste buds were left unsatisfied. Not even the expired sugar packets the waitress gave us could salvage the tea. After about 25 more minutes our wings finally arrived. The flavor was there, but the texture was that of chicken nugget that had been dropped behind a radiator and forgotten about. At this point I was so hungry that I ate the wings, but I had high hopes for the pizza since I’d never been let down by Lou Malnati’s pizza before. An hour went by since we placed our order and there was no sign of our pizza. We ask the waitress how long the pizza would be, and she informed us that our original pizza had been burnt, and that a new one would be out in 10 minutes. It would have been nice to know that since I was so ravenous that I was considering gnawing on the table to hold me over. Finally, the grand finale. The pizza arrives. It was the most pathetic abomination I have ever seen. The pizza looked like a piece of paper that dressed up as a pizza for Halloween. The crust was translucent and floppy, and could not even be picked up to eat. I bit into the soggy fraud of a pizza and almost shed a tear. I realized this is what pizza must taste like in prison. To top it off, the waitress did not ask to refill our waters or if we needed anything the entirety of our visit. This dining experience was a waste of time and money, and this establishment is a disgrace to Chicago style pizza. I would rather eat a face mask off of the ground than eat at this location again. 0 stars, F-, would not recommend to anyone...