Old Chicago Pizza + Taproom — Restaurant in Waco

Will I try this place again? Yes, but only because I believe in 2nd chances. We first arrived & the hostess told us a 60 minute wait. We started to leave but another guest, who was getting seated, advised us to wait because they were told the same wait time & only ended up waiting 20 minutes. So, we waited. During that wait, I watched the hostess continue to tell everyone who came in that it was going to be a 60 minute wait. 80% of them turned & walked back out the door. She alone cost this company a lot of money. How long did we actually wait? 24 minutes. I suggested she adjust her wait time estimation so that they wouldn't keep losing customers...her response was very cold unfortunately. Hey, I guess people can't take advise from someone just trying to help!

So, we get seated. And, we wait. And, we wait. And, wait some more. Finally our waitress showed up. By this time, we gave her our entire order since we'd waited so long & knew what we wanted to eat as well. She seemed friendly enough, was just extremely slow getting to us. I'm not sure what was going on but it was not an acceptable leaving us hanging with no waiter/ess.

Then, back to waiting. And, waiting. The food took AGES. I ordered a chicago crust individual pizza. Nothing major to write home about but not bad either. I'd probably try the other crust style if I tried their pizza again. One of my kids ordered a kids meal spaghetti and she chose her side to be mac-n-cheese. Her meal comes out and the side of mac-n-cheese was seriously larger than what was supposed to be her spaghetti (which was not even spaghetti but the same noodle as the macaroni with red sauce thrown in & a smaller portion than what was supposed to be her side!). Thankfully, the mac-n-cheese was tasty. We sent the other mess back & just opted for an additional side of mac-n-cheese. Obviously, they need to figure out their portions on the kid's meal.

Someone else in our party ordered the BLT and said it was good. Someone else tried ordering DrPepper & she said they ran out (as well as out of many food items). If I try the place 1 more time, I will likely try one of their loaded mac-n-cheese dinners. I snuck a taste of my kid's mac-n-cheese and I think it tasted better than the pizza I ordered.

All said & done, they have a lot to work on still. Starting with their time estimates for being seated, their attitude at the greeting table, their time at getting to the table to wait on the customers, and the time that food comes out of the kitchen. Majority of this revolving time management skills.

Should you give it a try? Only if you have 1.5-2 hrs of your time to kill for one dinner. If you do, & are not in a hurry, then go for...

We came here on a recommendation, and we decided our first time would be for a birthday dinner. We placed our order, it took a good while to get our food, although it wasn’t busy, but I didn’t really think much of that until other issues started to arise. Our food finally came out and my husbands food was incorrect. No big deal, we’re all human and make mistakes. It was how this mistake was handled that really started to upset me. The waiter admitted that he had made the mistake in my husbands food and that he would correct it. 20 minutes goes by without my husbands correct order being delivered. We ask and are told they will check on it. Another 15-20 minutes goes by and the waiter comes out and says there is an online order for 30+ people that the kitchen is currently working on and we will have to wait until that’s completed. Why? It was the restaurants mistake so why was my husbands food made to wait, it should have been put to the front of the line. The waiter also stated he was going to speak to the manager about giving us a discount on our ticket for the inconvenience. I don’t know if he did or not, but no discount was given, our ticket total was around $125 (I can’t remember exactly but our final bill was $140 after tip). We finally asked for my husbands food to be boxed to go as the rest of us had finished eating by now and by the time my husbands food was actually brought out it was nearly an hour after we sent back the incorrect food that was brought out initially. I sent a feedback email (I prefer to do it this was rather than blast online to give them a chance to handle the situation properly) to ensure this situation is addressed. I am sent a voucher for $25 off my next visit “when I bring a friend.” Idk how hard and fast that rule is to bring a friend to be able to use it but a $25 voucher on a $140 ticket is kind of an insult. Also, I’m not sure how they are really going to address this issue when no one asked for identifying information on when we were there or anything like that so the correct staff members can be addressed. Thanks for the $25 but after all these steps in the process, it’s clear the customer service is severely lacking so I likely won’t be back to use that...

I have been to old Chicago numerous times mostly in the killer and Dallas area this was my third time at the Waco area and let me tell you the experience might dictate whether I ever go back to any old Chicago again. First off I regularly tip very well this might’ve been the second time in my life that I have never tipped. Reason being is as follows: Our waitress literally sat at the table across from us with three of her friends who came in and chatted, took pictures on their cell phone, and laughed it up the whole time we were there. Our waitress forgot our silverware. I had to ask someone else to bring it while our food was sitting in front of us. Our waitress forgot our drinks and brought us the wrong drinks. I asked my waitress for sliced apples because I brought my one year-old. The sliced apples were on the menu it’s not like it was a special order item she forgot them. Our waitress got our order wrong it wasn’t a difficult order it was me my five-year-old my four-year-old and my one year-old. My five-year-old wanted a pepperoni pizza she brought cheese. We need to go boxes but we waited so long that we just got up to go pay at the front door because our waitress was too busy laughing with her friends. We never got the desserts I ordered for my kids. I ordered a full salad and she brought me a half salad. I took the phone survey that the manager told me to take and included that I did want to be contacted however I was never contacted it has now been over a month.

It’s the worst restaurant experience I had in over a decade, I will never go back to this particular restaurant and will possibly never go back to any old Chicago ever again because of this horrendous experience. If I could give less than one...