Giordano's — Restaurant in West Des Moines

Let's have some real talk about Giordano's in West Des Moines.

I love Chicago-style pizza, and I was beyond thrilled by the prospect of "real" Chicago-style pie in Des Moines. Unfortunately, Giordano's just can't seem to get it right.

I've been to Giordano's three times (for carry-out every time). Each time, I've scheduled my pickup for at least an hour after ordering, because I know it takes a while to bake a good deep dish pizza. Unfortunately, Giordano's has yet to get my order completely right. Problems in the first two trips ranged from an under-cooked pizza to missing items, and both trips featured seemingly-clueless staff at the restaurant, and neither order was ready at the requested time.

I'd decided that it wasn't really worth the trouble, and planned on waiting a while before returning, but I received the generous gift of a Giordano's gift card at Christmas. So, this Sunday, I ordered a couple of pizzas for my family (one deep dish and one extra thin). Upon arriving at the pre-selected time, I was taken care of by a very professional employee. Things were looking up. She told me that there would be about a two minute wait before my pizzas were ready, which was fine.

12 minutes later (yes, I timed it) She returned with my pizzas, and a manager. She explained that my deep dish pizza had been made with only one of the three requested ingredients The remaining ingredients (sausage and giardiniera mix) had been unceremoniously dumped on top after the pizza was baked. What I was being served was fundamentally NOT a Chicago-style pizza. This would be akin to ordering a corn dog at the fair, and being given a hot dot and a cornbread muffin. The entire point of Chicago style is that the ingredients are inside. I was given some gift certificates (the manager was unable to make the gift card creation process work, so they defaulted to paper coupons) as compensation for the completely unacceptable pizza. To put a nice little exclamation point on this experience, on the way home, the oil from the giardiniera mix which had been haphazardly tossed on top of the pizza leaked through the box, leaving about a three inch oil stain on the seat of my car.

I love Chicago-style pizza. I love Giardano's in Chicago. In West Des Moines, though, these guys can't actually make a successful pizza, and the garbage that they do make, takes an hour an twenty minutes. Do yourself a favor. If you're craving deep dish, or you've never had one and want to give it a try, go to Gusto, or (I'll say it) your grocer's freezer. At either place you'll find a less-authentic but vastly more edible Chicago-style pizza.

Update: After eating wonderful Giordano's in Chicago last week, I decided to give my hometown Giordano's another try. The pizza was ready when it was supposed to be, and the ingredients were correct. Sadly, the pizza had a deflated look, and was about as thick as a standard Domino's pie in the center. I don't know what it was supposed to be, but it was a loooong way from Chicago style. It's sad that Giordano's in Des Moines just can't make a pizza to save...

A group of us went last night for my birthday and immediately before we could even get seated, our server greeted us, handed the menus out and told us that we had to hurry up and get our order in because pizzas take 45 minutes to bake and the kitchen doesn't like to be inundated with orders. I was taken aback by her abruptness before even asking us how our night was, or what we wanted to drink. We told her we needed time to review the menu that none of us had been there before and twenty minutes later she came back to take our drink order. At that time, we also put in our appetizers and our appetizers got to the table before our drinks did. We had to remind our server twice about our drinks. Then we finally put in our pizza order. Again, she reminded us of the time it takes to bake but none of us got a deep dish. Keep in mind. The restaurant was not very busy at the time that we were there. Maybe 6 or 7 tables and three at the bar.

The Calamari came out cold. But we ate it. My daughter's Caesar's salad had no dressing on it. And we had to ask for dressing. One of our guests had to go up to the gentleman, working the takeout order area to get caesar dressing because our server never brought it.

My Little Italian salad was literally made for if a child was eating it. It maybe was a half a cup's worth of salad chopped up with some banana peppers and croutons and drowned in ranch dressing.

Then the pizzas came out ( we did The Chcago Classic & The Special) and and they looked delicious and piping hot. We all grabbed a piece of each one and dug in, and we were all disappointed as the flavor was just lacking. Where's the salt? Where's the pepper? Is what we asked to add to our pizza. Was there any garlic used in the pizza sauce?

The server did not come back after giving us our pizza for about thirty minutes and we had to flag her down because we needed to get to our next location/celebration.

Our bill was $137.49 for 4 drinks, 1 app, 2 small salads and 2 medium pizzas.

Unfortunately this was a...

Having never visited this establishment previously, I was pleasantly surprised with the Italian atmosphere and almost sports bar-esque vibe. We ordered deep dish style pizzas. One person will build your own and another 10-in build your own. I was shocked when I came out with a 10-in pizza that cost $35 because of the way that the pricing structure was done. I would highly recommend not doing a build your own unless you want to pay double what they are asking on the menu.

I feel like a standard approach with build your own menu items is between 3 and 5 toppings included in the initial price and then after which you pay $1.25 per topping when it's protein and then a dollar for veg. This was out of the gate $1.25 per vegetable item added after the initial cost of just the build your own and then more like $1.75 per protein choice. I added mostly vegetables but was shocked at the price for what I ordered.

One small item was that the waitress did not inform me that a deep dish takes 45 minutes and so about 30 minutes after we had ordered. I inquired with another waitress and she informed me of the time needed for the deep dish. I feel like that is something that should be noted to your customers and inform them so that they make an appropriate choice if they're in a time crunch.

Overall the pizza was well made. The crust was crunchy didn't have a soggy bottom and held together while the alfredo pizza that I got was a little under seasoned but was decent. One recommendation from me would be to use full artichoke hearts and not just artichoke shavings in the pizza. It would make it more Hardy and I believe customers would enjoy that a little bit more.

Overall, I would go back but would suggest to any others visiting this establishment to check out the price before you order a build. Your own, inquire is to cook time of the pizza if you're in a pinch, and enjoy that great...