Chicago Pizza & Sports Grille — Restaurant in Smyrna

Was in the area with my son and decided to try this place for the first time, we had heard from a couple of people that said the food was pretty decent. Now, let me preface this by saying I was raised in Chicago and worked at several places there (and two here) that served Chicago style food (including pizza).

The atmosphere definitely has a Chicago vibe, it smells like a typical sports bar, has a bunch of TVs with various sports. I imagine this place would be packed during a Bears or Cubs/White Sox game!

The menu has a lot of options, including several Chicago staples such as pizza (both thin and deep dish), Vienna beef hot dogs, and Italian beef sandwiches. When I saw the pictures of the hotdog on the menu and on the website I have to admit I was excited and looking forward to trying them.

To give an honest review, My son and I decided to get two Chicago hot dogs as an appetizer and an “authentic“ thin crust pizza with Italian sausage.

First the hot dogs, while they did come on the prerequisite poppyseed bun with a Vienna beef sausage, the overall preparation and taste earned it 2 out of 5 stars for us. The poppyseed buns were hard as though they had been toasted, but the temperature was lukewarm at best. Everybody knows if you want an authentic Chicago hot dog, the poppyseed buns should be steamed and soft. As a result of the hard buns, it split at the bottom after taking the first bite causing all the toppings to fall through onto the plate. Yes they did have the bright green relish, diced onions and tomatoes. We opted for no sport pepper, and there was a smattering of celery salt on the dogs. There was no pickle spear or yellow mustard on the dogs! Although there was a bottle of yellow mustard hiding behind the large ketchup bottle on the table, who serves an authentic Chicago hot dog with no mustard or pickle spears? I’m not sure why, but they also put two packets of mayonnaise on the plate? My honest opinion of the hot dogs? If you want truly authentic good tasting hot dogs, make them at home yourself or wait for the Portillo’s to open in Kennesaw sometime in November. All too often I have learned if you can’t do a Chicago hot dog right, your Italian beef is likely going to miss the mark as well.

Now for the “authentic” thin crust pizza. First let me say, I really wanted to like it, but the honest truth is I would never order it again. I asked for the pizza to be slightly well done so that the cheese was golden brown and the crust crispy without being burnt. While they did cook it properly so the cheese was browned, the crust was soft/floppy and far from crispy. Honestly, the crust tasted like it was premade/frozen. My biggest disappointment was the Italian sausage topping. If you’re looking for authentic Chicago Italian sausage, this is not the place unless you like frozen Italian sausage chunks that tastes like they came straight out of a Pizza Hut restaurant. If you know your Chicago pizza, then you know that Italian sausage should be chunked, fresh if possible, and have a distinct hint of fennel as though you emptied the casing of an Italian sausage link from the store or bought it in bulk and parsed it out evenly on the pizza. This sausage honestly tasted like frozen breakfast sausage. I give it one out of five stars only because they cut it in squares. Although they offer deep dish pizza, if they can’t do thin crust properly, I’m hesitant to try the deep dish. If you want an authentic Chicago thin crust or deep dish/stuffed pizza experience, you have several much better options around the metro area such as Nancy’s and even Rosati’s.

To be fair, the service was good, the waitress was attentive and checked on us regularly. It’s not her fault if the meal didn’t turn out as expected.

Overall, if you’re looking for a place to hang out with friends and watch a game and have some respectable bar food, this place is great, but if you’re looking for a truly authentic “Chicago food” experience, I’m sorry to say this place did not quite live up to its name for us on two of the most iconic...

Well, I was really hoping for an amazing pizza.

I called in to order a pizza, a 26" Supreme pizza, and when the lady finally answered she was screaming at the top of her lungs because the music was so loud. Not necessarily a problem with me.... hey, I love some good loud music. However, when you're trying to conduct business on the phone, I feel like you should have someone answering phones in a different part of the establishment where music isn't causing you to scream at each other.

So, she is yelling at me and I'm repeating everything I say about twenty times when she says, "Come to the bar when you get here.". I asked how long and she smartly replied with "Well, twenty minutes like I said."

OK ma'am.

So I drive the 2 minutes it takes to get to Chicago Pizza and my son goes in to get the food. Until he comes out. Without any food. He said they didn't have my order. Hmmmm. I call the establishment back and explain that I placed an order twenty minutes ago, and they are saying they don't have my order. They tell me that they remember someone calling, so they'll check into it. I'm told that it was put under another name. Doesn't surprise me because, again, the music.

When my son came back to the car holding a SMALL SMALL pizza box I was like, that is NOT our pizza. That's a small and I paid $27 for a LARGE pizza. I want a large pizza. We have two other mouths to feed. One being an adult male.

I must be remedial because I thought the pizza would somewhat resemble the pizza that they portray is what their pizza is on the menu. I was HIGHLY disappointed. A little because the pizza looked NOTHING like the picture, but MOSTLY because a 26" pizza is what I paid for, not a 12". You can't advertise a 26" for $27 and pay $27 for a 12" pizza.

The flavor was good though. It has a buttery type crust and it was crunchy. The pizza isn't anything to hype up like all of these other people. Either they had alcoholic drinks before their food arrived, or they were intoxicated before they even came in. I do these reviews because I travel a lot, and I rely on these reviews to make decisions on everything! So I try to leave detailed and honest reviews about things I encounter to help other people make an informed decision.

All in all, it wasn't the worst, but definitely not the best. The size alone made me mad because now I'm going to have to order more food to feed my family. Just highly disappointed because a 26" pizza would have sufficiently fed my family just fine because we don't even eat a lot.

I included a picture of my arm across the pizza box, just to show how...

I’m only giving this a 2 rating because of the floor manager whose name is BJ. Antwion, and Rap were amazing.

BJ, well he’s a rather rude, pompous and arrogant a. We got there around 2, Antwion showed us around as this was my first time at this establishment and we eventually settled on sitting in a reserved area next to the hookah lounge (mind you the reservation for the party in question wasn’t until 5!!!) we knew we were gonna have to move and that was fine, we were just chilling and talking. Mind you we were also aware of who the actual owners are and we were looking right at them the entire time. A new girl with glasses went around to various tables placing the reserved documents on tables advised we would have to move around 4/5 if we didn’t have a reservation. Jokingly we said we did, a joke okay! Like a joke as we were smiling and laughing, here comes BJ, with a nasty dismissive attitude asked who we made a reservation with, it was only 3ish, smh. We advised we were just joking with the lady and knew we had to move, he walked off and rolled his eyes and just wasn’t friendly at all. A few people told us he was not a good person at all, and hard to deal with and you know what I can see it!

The issue here is, you never know who your audience is, or who your customer is! Me and my friend went to scope the place for a potential client that wanted to possibly rent the entire place out, she was unable to come herself due to business, so sent us instead. We relayed the issue to Antwion who I hope took it back to the actual owners of this establishment, don’t be nasty and don’t be rude! You lost a potential business deal because of one bad apple, who ruined the experience for a potential client that wanted to bring her guests in for a memorable experience with great food.

I hope this review finds the owners and the understand that BJ needs to work on his customer service skills a little more and treat people with kindness and respect. Maybe Antwion should be the manager, because he is a true representation of class with the ability to listen...