gino's east

hyper-industrial & multi-story restaurant where i was unsure if i should order lunch or report for a shift machining wing nuts. mid sunday afternoon w/ plenty of room at the bar, but by the nature of the main attraction deepdishpizza, be prepared to occupy yourself for about 3/4 hour. plenty of tv’s to see if so inclined.
any small pie will run you ~$25 or more, w/ mushroom & patty sausage being my selection. oddly, extra vegetable & protein ingredients were priced the same, so selectivity may be required. the casserole-like chicago pizza is always satisfying, but i’ve had better than gino’s version. while the sausage & sauce were excellent, 45’ in the oven were apparently not enough to fully melt the mozzarella layer. noble effort but will try another when next in town.

every time i visit chicago this is a must do pizza place. i love the deepdishand the ambience. the graffiti messages on the wall really add to the nostalgia of the place.

after our disappointing lunch at pizzeria uno, i admit that we were a bit anxious to find a good deepdishpizza in chicago. not that we thought it was impossible, but, being there few days, we really wanted to go to a good place that would erase our past experience. and we did. after a walk to the navy pier, we looked up pizza places and ended up at gino’s east, a homegrown chain that serves an amazing pizza. i know that the term chain gives a negative image of the place, but, in this case, it should not. they have places in quite few cities, except unfortunately new york, but who knows, maybe one day! i would surely love to see them in the big apple, their pizza being superb: the crust has this golden color and texture that i could have sworn was because of corn meal, but no, it is due to the olive oil they put in it. it comes with a deliciously sweet tomato sauce, that tops a large amount of cheese (we asked for extra cheese and some blue). the pizza cooks for 45 minutes and comes very hot in a cast iron dish. after the first bite, you do not care that you might burn your mouth eating it: it is so good and flavorful. you get the crunchiness and crumbliness of the crust with the sweetness of the tomato sauce and suddenly the flavor of the cheese, especially the blue that pairs well with the tangy tomato sauce. sublime!

best deepdishpizza i've ever had! gino's east had fantastic service and even better food. we had an odd situation where we need a pizza that was half vegetarian and half meat lover's, and they did a great job, the halves were very different, but both were delicious. it does take a little bit of time, both to get a table, and for those tantalizing deepdishpizzas to cook, so maybe not the right spot if you're in a hurry, but if you have the time, it is well worth spending it at gino's east. the atmosphere, especially the names written on the wall (you can probably find mine if you look long enough), as well as the history add an extra dimension to the experience for those who enjoy such things. stop reading this and head there now! ;)

it was great to get a chance to be in chicago and eat at gino’s east original location again. surprisingly, we were able to get right in on a wednesday. we had a great server and their deepdishpizza (meat lovers) took a while (one hour), but it was worth it. we enjoyed it.

tried the very famous chicago deepdishpizza..first of all it was so crowded..we got the place after 20-25 minutes..pizza also took time to come...i was excited to try the pizza..but not quite liked it..too much cheese and tomato sauce...not so yummy

very excited to try my first chicago deepdishstyle pizza and it pretty much lived up to my expectations! we had some seriously yummy mozzarella sticks as an appetizer and the small spinach margarita pie. this was the right amount for two. decor was fun with lots of graffiti and cool bench seating.

i visited this place to settle the long dispute between this and giodrano's. i still cannot pick a clear winner, but giordano's had more flavor to it. there was no long queue, fortunately and i got my pizza pretty fast (as it normally takes a minimum of 45 minutes for your dd pizza to show up). the deepdishpizza was good.

sad face. definitely expected better. after going to giordano's and pizzeria uno i thought this was going to be the apex pizza. even waited in line here. sauce was meh, crust was meh, flavor was meh. i really think the deepdishi make at home was better. atmosphere was interesting, service was good, and i liked the caprese salad.

it's a must for everyone in chicago! great deepdishpizza and anything else you can find on the menu! also make sure to bring a marker so you can write your name and remember the historic site.

we loved the toppings.  the sausage was seasoned nicely, with peppery notes and a nice sweetness.  the sweetness may have also come from the onions and green peppers – beautiful, really. the tomato sauce was acidic but not too acidic, which is a good thing!  we were surprised about that! we loved how the cheese brought everything together as it continued to melt and spread across our plates.  this made that one slice of pizza… not only a slice of pizza but a meal as a whole.  i loved it.  we loved it and certainly wanted more. the crust is a big deal for deepdishpizzas.  a criteria is that it should be able to hold all of the toppings well and not fall apart under the weight of the sauce, cheese, meats and veggies.  this crust passed that test! something else that i noticed was that the crust had numerous wonderful textures.  the sides were crispy, the bottom was crispy, the inner portion of the crust that had a layer of cheese was moist and fluffy, rich and almost creamy – melding together with the cheese.  this  makes the pizza.  we were extremely delighted with how buttery and flavorful the crust was. final thoughts: geno’s east is eat. nosh. nom.’s favorite chicago deepdishpizza spot so far.  does that mean that in our books, geno’s tops lou malnati’s ?  yep. make a reservation before finding your way to gino’s.  good news though – if you didn’t a chance to, and you’re on your way, when we dropped by without a reservation, we were seated immediately. this location, the original location, was nicely positioned near lots of touristy areas.  the service was fantastic and the decor and atmosphere was fun.  you’ll see, in the picture above, that people have written on the walls and left their mark at the restaurant for years to come. a lo

despite waiting a full hour for our deepdishpizza, our service was decent. the restaurant had all these signatures from people visiting from all around the world - so it was entertaining looking at signatures. the food was okay - i'm not really a deepdishpizza fan after trying for the first time here. (update: cold deepdishpizza is delicious! way way better than fresh from the oven deepdishpizza - day after pizza is the way to go).

vegetarian deep dish. the overall experience was positive. the deepdishpie was very heavy on cheese. it could have had more vegetables.

stay away!! must read!. after awesome reviews and recommendations from friends to try this place we decided to stop by. we are from ny and visiting chicago for the first time.

the place looks cool with writing on the walls and it's very clean. friendly staff also. it was loud for our us though and the tables were wobbly.

we knew we would have to wait about an hour for a deepdishpizza which was fine because it was "worth the wait."

so we started with the spinach and artichoke dip which was awesome. didn't take like spinach and the cheese was awesome. i'm not a huge fan of spinach but i would order this again.

place our order and began counting down. pizza finally came and it smelt delicious. one meat lovers (forget exact name) and four cheese. everything was great until they told me they put spinach in my four cheese. i said i didn't order that with spinach. they server guy pushes me to try it anyway and he would send over our waitress.
i couldn't eat my deepdishpizza i just waited an hour for. i would have tried to suffer through the spinach taste but it was just too over powering to do so. the waitress did feel bad and asked if she could get me anything else. but by that time my two other family members were almost done eating and were beginning to feel full.
the waitress asked me if i could eat some of the meat pizza that was left and i said no i ordered the cheese pizza separately because i don't like anything in the meat pizza. we didn't have time to order another pizza and wait another hour so my family could watch me eat.

the purpose of eating out is to eat together. so i got to watch my aunt and cousin eat their dinner. i left hungry. granted they didn't charge me for my pizza. great. but why should i pay for something i didn't eat?

as i said it's loud inside so make sure you repeat your order 2x times before the waitress walks away.
on our way out the same waitress was boxing up another tables order and knocked a soda over on the lady's lap. the tables are wobbly--be careful you could leave hungry and wearing soda.
spend $54 with tip and $27 on parking for 3 well 2 people to eat. no worth it. stay away!

try any of the other pizza joints first!. over the years gino's east has become a big disappointment. we recently had a craving for pizza, and as we live only a few blocks away, headed over to gino's.

we arrived a bit before 5 on a sunday hoping to sit on the rooftop, only to find that none of the upper floors were available. we eventually were seated on the second floor where clearly the staff was rushing to try to get it ready for service. i would expect a place that often has a line out the door to be ready for service by this time of the day.

the runner spilled 4 of the 20 oz of the beer i ordered. he was apologetic and cleaned it up, but no one offered to top-off the beer.

having had the deepdishseveral times before, and being in agreement with other reviewers that "pizza hut is better" we opted for the thin crust. our thin crust arrived 50 minutes later, and after the deepdishat the next table that wasn't even seated when we ordered.

server was absent and inattentive when she was (oddysey?)

after 4-5 visits in the past i have to attribute the waiting line of tourists to the location. you will be much happier if you go a bit off michigan and try lou malnati's (the best), pizzeria uno, giordano's, or even bella bacino's. the only thing gino's has going for it is the environment; the dining room is large and roomy, unlike many of the others.

we will never return, even if requested by guests from out-of-town. we just simply won't ever go back, not even for a free pizza.