Chico's Pizza — Restaurant in Long Beach

I must first identify myself as an east coast pizza snob. No one, in my opinion, in the PNW can ever beat a true, blue NY pizza. So, it is with this biased filter I leave my review. I’ve lived in the area for over 30 years and have loudly railed against Chico’s pizza. It had the taste and texture of old cardboard and I could never understand how anyone could eat it. You were better off with a frozen Digiorno’s! But, knowing they had a change of ownership and hearing the place was cleaned up, we decided to give it a try once more. The cashier greeted us warmly and gave us time to figure out our order. The renovations are nice. It was so nice walking into the large, well lit restaurant. It’s clean! That’s nice, let me tell you! The windows were clean, the carpet was clean, the counters were clean…such a nice clean place! (Did I say it was clean?) The salad bar also looked clean, fresh with lots of variety to pick from. We decided on a large half Hawaiian, half something with meat for my carnivore husband. We also got two small salads. As previously stated, the salad bar looked healthy. The lettuce was a nice mix of different, fresh greens. No bruised, brown or wilted lettuce. Lots of accoutrements to choose from. We sat in a roomy booth and ate our salads, and the pizza arrived in a timely fashion. The crust is thin and crispy. No NY folding is going to happen with this pizza, but that’s ok. It was sturdy and held the toppings and cheese very well. And the toppings were generous. It reminded me of Shakey’s, to be honest. The only thing missing was the balloon man with cardboard feet. (If you know, you know!) My one criticism would be the sauce was kind of flavorless. It wasn’t bad….it just needed to be a bit more with some flavor to it. Also, there was no air conditioning…not sure if it was broken or if they don’t have it, but it was pretty warm in the restaurant, which wasn’t nice on this hot day, but I can see how it would be cozy on a wet, cold PNW fall/winter day! Overall, we enjoyed the food. We will definitely come come back again when I’m not making my own pizza. Not a five star, but a solid 4 from this...

First, the employees were friendly; nothing negative to say there.

It is undeniable that the owner is trying to squeeze every last cent out of this joint at the cost of their customers.

Styrofoam plates, the cheapest napkins possible, paper cups and the customer having to pay for to go boxes are a few examples. Oh yes, and no free water. What is up with that? So the water quality isn't the best at the beach? So what! It is drinkable and it is unheard of it for it to not be offered.

Further example of pure cheapness was the lack of working soap OR paper towel dispenser in the men's restroom (my husband reported this to me and I made the wise decision to not visit the women's.) Instead of buying the soap from the hand soap distributor (you get the dispenser for free but have to buy the soap) the dispenser is broken and an old Ketchup bottle is full of blue dish soap for you to use on your hands. Further, the paper hand towels on top of the broken dispenser and the extra paper towels are stored on the floor under the sink. There is no way that should pass health inspection and we felt grossed out and like we should have checked their health inspection report before eating there.

The pizza was not better than a $4.99 Frechetta. The salad bar consisted of half wilted/browning iceburg, a mystery salad (I'm assuming tuna), mac salad and potato salad. Your topping options are whole baby carrots, shredded beets, cheese, tomatoes, browned celery, mushrooms (these were fresh not canned), black olives and a few more mediocre options. I wanted the French dressing but decided against it when I lifted the handle and it was gloopy and chunky. French should never be chunky which made me think it must be full of...

This pizza joint has the overwhelming vibe that their passion is making every little penny they can from the restaurant instead of making good pizza. It hard to call the pizza mediocre because that would be a little too good for it. The pizza is not inedible, but sadly, I would have been happier with a Dominoes pizza and that should be the case with a good locally owned pizza joint. The cheese on the pizza is like when I make pizza at home for my kids and I just use the pre grated bag of cheddar/Jack cheese mix. It just had a very "not professional pizzeria" quality. Then there is the "no free water" policy. Which didn't bother since I don't go out for pizza just to drink water, but it is an odd, stingy policy. Also the salad has no refills, which is less odd but it's very common to have a bottomless salad bar at a pizza joint. They also don't bring your pizza to your pizza, they call out a number and you have to go get it yourself. Seems like the owner is keeping his staff down so he can maximize profits and passing the work onto the customer. Then the use of cheap Styrofoam plates and paper cups. Just gives the whole place a very cheap vibe. Honestly, if they took their pizza quality up a couple notches and gave real good customer service, really focused on making the customer feel welcomed and special (ie. Bring them their pizza and give them a free cup of water) they may spend a little bit of their profit now, but they would increase their customer base to more than pay for it in the long run. It's sad to see how short sighted business owners can be.

So, go here is you want mediocre pizza with very little...