Little Pops NY Pizzeria Trattoria Lisle — Restaurant in Lisle

I'm a forever New Yorker, Born and raise so what I was expecting goes back decades. Lived on all 5-boroughs of New York and wear the badge proudly. With that being said, I know really good Pizza.

After relocating to Illinois, I stopped eating pizza. Sometimes go back to visit NYC just to get a slice. With an open mind and on a trial taste mission I order a 10-inch cheese pizza $12 and a slice of 7-layer mousse cake $12.

Mostly disappointed in the 10-inch pizza where the point of a New York Pizza is sweet sauce, thin crust and at minimum equal amount of cheese as dough. The 10-inch pizza, with the exception of sweet sauce FAILED to provide this. I would estimate the bottom thin crust and edging crust, by far was 75% of the entire pizza.

I love NY topping which is why folding a slice makes perfect sense. In this case, the bread was too stiff. the slice did not flop, it did not crease.

Though I love the flavor of New York crust, however, the crust was much-to-much relative to the sauce and cheese to be called a New York Pizza.

Lastly, the delicious 7-layer cake was much too small to charge $12. The layers were such to equal the size of a very small slice of cheese cake, stack on top of the other. Not acceptable.

To be fair, down sizing a recipe could be difficult so I will try pizza and perhaps other items on the menu again. Especially, when living within walking distance so this Pizzeria is truly in my neighborhood. Loved the decor..the vibe is truly New York, NY.

ADVICE: Illinois is known for it's food and most of all sizable portions that has become a trademark when dining in or out. Filling a 10" pizza with dough lacks substance and cutting a cake into 12-portions just won't cut it in the long term.

In hind-site perhaps a SLICE for a "taste test" is a better option than a 10-inch pizza.

Update: Waited and 4-hours later then tried the chocolate mousse cake. I've renamed it to "Death by Chocolate" or "Chocolate Detox". Within 1-hour my stomach begin doing tumble-salts and as if this cake was filled with EX-Lax.

The mousse was not creamy, wet like chocolate syrup. Did I received an old piece of cake? Although I pointed to the cake behind the glass window...the register attendant went to the back and brought out the cake already packaged in a bag. So I never set eyes upon it until I returned back home. This is an experience no one needs to have so in this case, I will be calling the pizzeria about this mousse cake that should be tested, tried before selling again.

7-28-24 Update to Owner, Mike: So I called and spoke to your wife who identified herself as the baker... I get the New York State Of Mind as your wife did not allow me to get a word into the conversation. However, the New York arrogant attitude is less than desirable when a complaint is taken very-very personal. The conversation ended on a sour note because any criticism, constructive or not is not allowed as a ti-bit for improvement at Little Pops NY Pizzeria.

I've run a tried and proven business over 3-decades in Illinois. The mid-west is very forgiving when something is new. But so what? Years in business should never be the litmus test for excellence. Management and Operations is the recipe. .

All New Yorker's know that the Big League (Icons) in the Pizza industry have been able to down size recipes to give pizza lovers that same wonderful 10". Anyone can make a large delicious New York pizza even at home as I do. That being stated, Little Pop is advertising "New York Pizza" and not different pizza's according to size. When slapping a label on anything, then calling it New York Pizza this type of behavior gives New York pizza a bad reputation.

Could it be the arrogance of Little Pop thinking that people in the Mid-west don't know any better or perhaps this idea that people will take whatever is dished-out? The owners, if actually New Yorker's should know that a New Yorker is a tough customer and should be use to hard-hitting criticism. It's that which make New York City competition a place striving...

Final update: known the owner for sometime, after back and forth with us on messenger, and he told me not to come back and that we are done. I still wish them the best, good luck with your visit.

Update to the owner. My dad inquired to speak to you or Vicki, found out you weren’t there, we dropped it. Also didn’t see anyone around who looked like a manager, and no one came around asking how was dinner, so there you go. As far as the salad, ok, agree to disagree, wasn’t the little pops of old bottom line. Glad your current customers “love it” we didn’t, and won’t be recommending your locations.

Thanks for the reply

The last few years I traveled all around the US eastern seaboard, I’m returning to NY this fall again. Maybe I caught the restaurant on an off night but the new restaurant/location is like a recommended restaurant you get at the hotel/resort when you’re an out of towner. When you take a step back, the environment is really good and you see what they were going for, but the prices, quality, and quantity don’t match what you pay once you put the atmosphere aside.

I wish the restaurant the best and hope they’ll take this as honest feedback from a previous long standing customer. The food and atmosphere at the original dine in location had the experience of a vacation away from home where you never wanted to leave and would bring back memories of living in the tri-state with over crowded homes that you were going to be at for the night as your aunts, and cooks argued over who’s plate was best and what spices to use.

Went for my mom’s 80th birthday, first time in the new restaurant starting at 430 before the dinner rush. The calzone was, more like a folded cheese garlic bread where the cheese got smashed to one side. I didn’t even finish it, just gave the rest to our daughter at her request, she didn’t even like it or finish it. The salads consisted of a mound of lettuce with a single cherry tomato cut in half with a slice of cucumber cut in half. I guess gone our days where you had lettuce, tomato, croutons, onion, olives etc. Gone is the experience of Nana or the closest aunt filling up with so much stuff, you wanted them to stop but you couldn’t say no.

Our daughter’s butter spaghetti tasted like butter spaghetti soup. Tasted my wife’s marinara plate and the pasta tasted way over cooked, still tasted like little pops sauce but the pasta just wasn’t good. I would have called this to the servers attention, but we spent the night flagging down the server, stopping her to get our orders in. I don’t even recall her asking us “how everything tasted?” It was more like an assembly line of different people, switching out plates, and forgetting my nephews personal pizza tray until the desert arrived. They delivered half my brother entree 5 minutes before the rest of the entree. The Italian wedding soup, tasted like watered down green water, with 5 mini meatballs, a leaf of green torn up, and flavor that had me up throughout the night with stomach pains burping up the flavor. The flavor what little there was of it, just didn’t taste good. And this item was a staple of what made the old little pops feel like a meal you never wanted to end, wasn’t even close.

I could go on but I gotta get started with work.In the end when the check came, I couldn’t wait to pay and go home. As we walked out, my sister asked how I really felt, and I told her my more honest and colorful way. As we got in the car my wife kept reminding me of the brownie they forgot to bring her and our 10 years old daughter said that summarized how I felt. “It wasn’t very good ”

Going to take my mom out again for a proper birthday dinner to some where else. Perhaps your experience will be better and the food will be better on your end, time will tell. I don’t plan...

Updating review to 5 stars to reflect the Owner's willingness to discuss the honest feedback provided and make it right for me and my family. The food normally is fantastic and I now know the owners are too...Thanks again Mike.

Hello. I just left the sit-down restaurant in Lisle and it was one of the worst dining experiences I have had in a while, which was very surprising considering how much I love the food from the Wehrli take-out location. I had a 6:45pm reservation and it was bad from the beginning. The host asked if it was okay to seat us at the high tops because it was busier in the standard seating area even though the reservation had specified a standard table. Not a big deal, but part of the story. We were able to order the appetizers relatively quickly because we purposely ordered them with the drinks. It also did not take long for us to be able to place our main course orders. It was the waiting for the food and the food itself that were the real issues. The timing was terrible. It took forever to get every course of food out. I had to ask about the appetizers (The mozzarella sticks were overcooked. Not really a big deal again, but part of the story). I had to ask for the soup and salad. The server told us that there was a meatball situation that caused the Italian wedding soups to be late. When we finally got the soups they did not live up to the standards set by the take out location on Wehrli. The meatballs were overcooked, completely changing the taste of the soup and the Caesar salad was swimming in Caesar dressing and cheese. We waited so long for the entrees that the server eventually had to force the kitchen to get our entrees made. I could have forgiven the over 1 hour and 15 minutes it took for us to get our entrees if the food was as good as it normally is. Unfortunately, the pork chops in my pork chop Vesuvio were so overcooked that I had to force myself to eat them. They were so dry that once I ran out of Vesuvio sauce, I had to stop eating them. There was almost an entire pork chop left when the bus boy who clearly does not understand English took my plate. My wife told me to stop eating the meal because the chop was so dry it was disintegrating from me trying to cut it with a butter knife. Speaking of my wife, the noodles (penne) in her pasta ala vodka were nowhere near al dente when she got her meal. It wasn’t this bad, but it was almost like you could hear the snap when you bit into them. They did soften in the sauce as she ate, so that by the time she was done, the remaining noodles started to get to an al dente level of cooked. My 14-year-old son’s food was great (his words). My 20-year-old who loves the chicken francese from the Wehrli location was disappointed with his meal. He said it was somehow too lemony and he loves lemon (his words). He also mentioned that the chicken was overcooked. The server (Omar S. from the receipt) apologized for all of the waiting. We did mention how overcooked the food was when asked how everything was, which he also apologized for. He did offer us a free dessert, but having been in the restaurant for 1 hour and 45 minutes, we had no interest in being there any longer. There was no manager visit or any other attempt to make us feel any better about the situation. I understand being busy and don’t normally complain about things in a public forum, but I was incredibly disappointed with this meal. There was either way too little staff working or the staff that was working was having an off night. The kitchen staff was absolutely terrible tonight. If it wasn't for my 14 year old liking his food and just how good all of the sauces usually are, this would definitely have been a 1 star night. If I order from Little Pops its going to be from the Wehrli location...