Carmen’s Pizza

closed all locations

Sadly, it appears that the Loyola branch of Carmen’s has sufered the same fate as its Evanston counterpart. They were officially evicted today after not paying rent for the last year. They were good while they lasted. Long live Carmen’s

I was told by old Loyola students that they think of this place with dearest nostalgia when thinking of their experience. Its just like any other college area pizza place. The buffet is borderline pizza hut, but its not terrible. I guess if your hungry/​desperate for pizza go for it but do not go out of your way.
The atmospher, btw, is like barnaby’s or any other pizza dungeon of Chicago.

Okay. I’ll admite that the only reason I initiall chose this place over any other pizzaria was that we share a name. Well, that and it’s close proximity to where I love.
Honestly, the pizza wasn’t that great — but still good. Not bad. I got deep dish and I liked the crust. At 6 bucks it was pretty cheap, and the lunch buffet offers and even better deal, all you can eat for I think around 7 bucks.
The Environment: kinda shabby. Kinda greasy feeling. But by no means disgusting. The place was pretty dead when I went around 1. Just me and one other lady. I’m not sure if its always like that but judgeing my other reviews it is.
I’d say this place is okay for a quick, cheap, nice tasting lunch.

Womp womp wompppppp
Just okay.
I had the lasagna, and it took FOREVERRRRRRR to come out. But it was good nonetheless. The rest of my family ordered different things, but they all said the minestrone soup tasted burnt – all of them said it.
I wouldn’t be back, sorry.

My office is right by Carmen’s. As a thank you to some of the employees that work with us, our office decided to buy them all lunch this week. They could pick the day and time and restaurant and we would just place the order for them.
I ordered a Fettucini Alfredo with grilled chicken and broccoli. The manager and the person who answered the phone said sure no problem. Ok. The Fettucini Alfredo arrived with grilled chicken but with mushrooms and peppers. Okaaaaay.
So I called and I asked them to please send me a corrected order and to pick up the wrong order. The person on the phone said that the manager said that it was not a wrong order that it was chicken with vegetables. I never said vegetables. I said broccoli. So I try to explain this to the person on the phone who then tells me that they don’t even have broccoli. Ok. So I ask her why I wasn’t told that to begin with and she said she didn’t take my order. So I tell her to just cancel the order and to please come get it. So she says ok.
I then call Leona’s and place my order there.
Then I get a call from Carmen’s manager asking me if I wanted the order redone. Girlfriend, that’s what I asked for in the first place but you told your flunky to say no that it was the right order and that no you don’t even have broccoli! I didn’t say that.
Instead I told her no that I had already placed an order somewhere else and that they really should have told me upfront that they didn’t have broccoli instead of putting in other vegetables that I did not ask for. What if I were allergic to mushrooms or peppers?
So we got reimbursed. Leona’s sent us the order we asked for and my worker finally got the lunch she deserved. And I am writing this review because it is NOT acceptable to not tell people that you do not have an ingredient and then to try to blame the customer. Not cool, Carmen’s. Not cool. You have lost a heck of a lot of business from my office.

The restaurant is dirty and in dire need of a makeover. The service is nice enough but the pizza is dry like I was eating cardboard.
I didn’t know pizza could be so bad :(

Wow – DON’T pay $ 7 bucks for a large Caesar salad! It was an aluminum vat of lettuce & dressing – that’s it! Totally didn’t have «Made with fresh romaine, black olives, cucumbers, tomatoes, and Parmesan.»
Whatever, at least the crust is pretty good on their pizza. Unfortunately I’ll be skipping the salad forever!

The pizza really isn’t anything super special. I have strong sentimental attachments to this place though, so sometimes I crave it. The service is usually pretty good when I go there, and delivery and pick-​up are both fast options. Even on a Friday night you can have fresh, hot pizza at home within 45 minutes of calling.
The thin crust is a little bit bready for my taste, but it’s really good the next day. Reheated in the toaster oven, the crust becomes buttery and flaky. I’m not sure what kind of chemistry goes on in the fridge overnight, but it sure does make for a tasty breakfast.
We just had the pan last night and were kind of disappointed. I remembered it being better. Again, it was breadier than I remember. Ah, well.
They have a reasonably priced lunch buffet and they also have a history of helping different Loyola student organizations with fundraisers and donating food, so they’re worth your patronage.

Wonderful food, mediocre service. Carmen’s is easily the best place to have lunch if you are coming from Loyola and have limited time.
They have an affordable lunch buffet, consisting of various pizzas and salad. Sandwiches, such as the Italian Beef, are also very good and huge enough that they can easily be shared by two people. You can have a very tasty, filling lunch for under $ 8 a person.
The service leaves much to be desired. Most times that I’ve been to Carmen’s, I’ve been waited on by a girl that does the absolute minimum. You are seated and waited on with little or no verbal contact, and you should ask for your check as soon as you order food of you will be waiting for it forever. When I brought my Mom to Carmen’s, she asked if the waitress was high. She might have been.
There is another waiter that is the exception to the rule. The guy that looks like a young Dr. House is wonderful. He is funny and very attentive. Unfortunately, you only have about a 1 in 5 chance of getting this guy.

Having just posted a merely adequate review for dining at the Carmen’s location in Evanston, I feel the need to redeem myself (and Carmen’s) by posting a stellar review for the location in Chicago. Mind you, I’ve never dined in at this Carmen’s location, so the dine-​in experience may be just as disappointing as my Evanston experience was. However, I have no complaints with their delivery, which allows me to focus on their pizza. Which is fantastic.
Forget thin-​crust. There are far better thin-​crust locations (which isn’t to say that Carmen’s thin-​crust isn’t better than the Chicago-​style thin-​crust garbage that most places serve). Forget stuffed. It’s good, and slightly different, but not any better than the other stuffed options. No, when ordering from Carmen’s, get their deep-​dish.
Maybe it’s just me. Maybe it’s just my obsession with all things cheesy. Or maybe Carmen’s really does have the best deep-​dish pizza in the city. It features a delicious, buttery crust, a heavenly amount of cheese that is appropriately gooey and a fine layer of sauce to add just the right amount of zing. Yum. Seriously, yum.
It’s actually better eaten there, as the cheese will still be near-​molten when served, but it carries out and delivers well. Have a knife handy, as your pizza will arrive uncut. Order before you’re hungry, because it’ll take an hour (or more) for your pizza to arrive. It’s never as good the next day, but order a size up anyway, because you’ll find yourself searching for room to eat just one more slice at the end.

I love Carmen’s pizza; it’s one of my sentimental favorites. At best it’s a three-​star restaurant because its dimly lit, has a shoddy waitstaff, seems to always be at best half full, but there are plenty of reasons to enjoy it. It’s cheap, has good pizza, pizza by the slice, an AWESOME lunch buffet, convenient to LU students. They also have heart-​shaped pizza for Valentine’s Day. My fiancée LOVES this concept and insists that we come here every V-​day. Not a problem for me, so we came here yesterday for dinner.
1. The waitress FORGOT that we were there and used the register being broken as an excuse.
2. Our appetizer of cheesy bread never arrived and was only addressed seconds before our pizza arrived.
3. The cookies that came as a dessert since we ordered the heart-​shaped pizza were disgusting. They tasted like they were missing sugar and egg. Or vanilla … or something. They were just bad!
Now, at the outset, I stated that Carmen’s is at best a three-​star restaurant but that does preclude me from having a four or five star experience. If you average out experiences though, it’ll come out to a 3, as Unilocalers seem to agree. I’m giving Carmen’s 2-​stars instead of 1 because I know that they can do better, but I was really looking for a 4 or 5 star experience for a Valentine’s Day dinner.
I should call them next year and make sure that they are doing their jobs correctly before we come in.

Still my favorite stuffed crust pizza in all of Chicago. I may be biased because I was a Loyola student and ate Carmen’s about ever other week, but still…
Yeah, they have terrible service. Yeah, they take 2 hours to deliver sometimes. Yeah, they constantly forget my side of creamy garlic sauce. But all is forgotten when I sink my teeth into that perfect stuffed pizza, complete with perfectly chunky tomato sauce and perfectly crispy and buttery crust, dipped in that yummy creamy garlic sauce (when they finally do remember to bring it). I wish they would open a location in/​around Lincoln Park.

My first experience at Loyola (which may have been a sign from God) was eating here after orientation. The place was crowded for a Saturday night. That’s always good. So it must be good food as well, right?
Well the grinder sandwiches were pretty good. Not the best, but good. I remember my last famous words as I ate the sausage and mushroom pizza, «Hmm, this tastes funny.» Five hours later… let’s say that night didn’t end too well. Needless to say, I prefer the school cafeteria rather than going back to this place.

If this wasn’t RIGHT THERE by Loyola I can’t see it having as much business as it does, and midday before dinner and after lunch it’s pretty dead. Cheap dishes, dark room, a little sticky on the floor and some tables, but pretty decent pizza. Of course for poor college students any meal you get here is pretty affordable. And not that Lou Manalti’s isn’t affordable for college kids, but Carmen’s prices are surprisingly cheaper.
It’s better to eat at the restaurant than to get carry out. They’ve also got pasta and burgers but I wouldn’t particularly recommend them. What you really want to do here is hang out with your friends after class and eat to cool down. I agree with Moni who said the spinach is probably THE thing to get.

Be warned that my review of this place is extremely old (ie last time I was at Carmen’s I was a senior in HS). Anyways its senior year my football team at NN has a new starting QB is a kid who played soccer for Fresh, Soph and Junior year. Anyways, being that he is a smart cat he decides to buddy up with the O-​line and D-​line by inviting us out to pizza.
Well it was here, and the pizza was free… but it was sponsored by his church group. I like pizza, but I’m not Christain. About 50% of the line was fellow Jewish kids from Skokie. But free pizza is free pizza. So we enjoy and eat. Then some moderator starts talking about g-​d and our views of heaven.
One of my buddy’s (who will be a groomsmen in my upcoming wedding) answers that his view of heaven is 100 kegs and he has the only tapper. The church guy says «ok… thats an interesting answer».
So… you’re probably reading to know about the pizza. I thought it was solid. I put it lower than Giordanos, Uno’s (the real one not the chain), and Lou’s. So it doesn’t make my must have pizza, it will always find room in my belly if its around.

Before the Village North Theater closed this past winter, this was our staple bargain night out. A $ 5 film, followed by pizza and drinks at Carmens. Now that the theater is closed, we don’t make it as much, but every now and then we’ll get a craving and make a special trip to Rogers Park.
For the price of the pies, the service is a good as can be expected. It’s not a five star restaurant, but they’ve always taken care of me when I’ve gone. They drinks are fairly priced with a good selection. The thin crust pizza is quite yummy, with crispy crust, lots of cheese and sauce with just the right spices, and tons of toppings.
The atmosphere is perfect; very hole in the wall/​old school.

Yesterday, my train went express and dropped us off at Loyola. I was starving, so I figured I’d just walk up to the Chipotle and get a burrito. On my way there, i saw a sign for a pizza & salad buffet for 6 bucks. since i’m poor and cheap, i figured i’d go into Carmen’s instead and «MAKE THEM RUE THE DAY!» which is a common battle cry of mine whenever i’m confronted with a buffet of any sort.
So…let’s get right down to brass tacks. The pizza isn’t all that great. It’s like freezer section pizza quality, but hey, i’m ok with that. The buffet selection was pretty good. They had both deep dish and thin crust, and offered sausage, pepperoni, hawaiian, cheese and veggie. Points for variety, I suppose.
I totally have to concur with Carol J’s opinion on the garlic ranch dressing. That stuff was surprisingly good.
The gal working the counter was very nice and wasn’t at all perturbed that i was trying to drink a gallon of diet coke, one cup at a time.
the location itself was alright. there were a lot of tables and it was relatively cozy. it might be an ok place to go grab a cheap pizza and a pitcher of beer, but definitely not a destination or a date place.
so…the verdict: ok for a quick lunch, but not really a place i’d order delivery from. pizza was serviceable, staff was nice enough, location is great for loyola students and the interior is moderately clean and comfortable.

The running joke goes something like this: «Man Loyola really shelled out for us, they got us CARMEN’S!»
The place is kinda bleh. I’ve dined in and ordered and the best thing here is their stuffed spinach pizza, although I’ve been kind of avoiding it because I found what might have been a fingernail (i’m hoping it was a really really hard piece of cheese) inside a piece of stuffed spinach. Yuck.
The pasta dishes seem like they are just boiled noodles + canned sauce. A lot of the stuff on the menu that comes out of the kitchen seems like I could make it in a minute or two, but it takes longer to come out of the kitchen. They are also notorious for running out of ingredients, as I experienced a couple of nights. Though perhaps that was fate telling me not to try their clam pasta dish.
The pizza bread does indeed rock, however.
If I’m too cheap to shell out for Chipotle or really want pizza, I just stop by and buy it by the slice. I don’t think I’d buy a whole pizza here.

I’ve been coming here for years because I went to DePaul but the friend went to Loyola and I had the car. End of story. Although they did briefly open on Lincoln Avenue, their stay was short lived. Anyway, I really love their pizza, perfect sauce, nice and cheezy. Love it.
But they have the best Ranch salad dressing I have ever had in my life, and I have had some ranch in my day. It is to die for. I am craving it now. I tried to get some to go once and they gave me a few little containers. The next time they gave me a soup bowl. The next time, I rolled up with a cement mixer and they said beat it. Oh well.
Great prices, decent service. Awesome salad dressing!