Gino’s East of Chicago

First pizza experience of Chicago and one of the best I’ve ever had. The real difference between Chicago Pizza and New York Pizza is not just the crust. New York Pizza you fold, eat, and walk away. Gino’s East is more of a delicious lasagna, layer upon layer of rich ingredients, including flat sausage, tomato sauce, and a cheese blend. The walls are covered with crayon writing from past guests, so be sure to make your mark and enjoy some amazing pizza.

So since I am visiting Chicago and surrounding area for the first time I knew I had to get some Chicago style deep dish pizza while I was here. A few «locals» recommended Gino’s so that is were we went. There were four of us and we started with the spinach artichoke dip and calamari and the house salad. It was good to start with some appetizers since the pizzas take about 40min. and smelling and seeing the pizza pass by you to other tables definitely can get your stomach rumbling. For the main event we ordered the large supreme with the slab sausage. I have never seen anything like slab sausage before. It is literally a huge sheet of sausage that covers the whole pizza. It was quite tasty. As for the pizza itself the sauce is great and well balanced with good use of spices and herbs. The crust is nice and thick but with the yeast used (which you can taste) remains nice and light. I was worried that this pizza was going to be soooo thick and heavy but really it was perfect. But we were a little over zealous with our ordering and we all could only eat half of the pizza which was one piece per person.
I can’t compare this to other local favorites but for this out-​of-​towner it was quite good and a departure from the usual thin neapolitan type pizza I get at home.

I have yet to figure out why it’s called Gino’s East — they’re nearly all west. West of the city, west of the lake, west of Indiana… well, except for the one IN Indiana, I suppose.
Anyway, Gino’s is some darn tasty deep dish. I have to admit, it isn’t my favorite. Lou’s still wins. Their crust edges out Gino’s. But that said, when the waitress put my piping-​hot ooey-​gooey slice in front of me, I was thrilled to see it.
Here’s how my deep dish-​eating process goes:
1. Inhale aroma. Eye steam rising from sauce-​slathered cheese. Decide to take a bite anyway.
2. Take a few bites. Savor. Enjoy. Think, «mmm, this is good. I think I might want a second piece today.»
3. Continue eating. Get to cornmeal crust. Realize that, in fact, there is no room for a second piece.
4. Steal one last cheesy bite of husband’s third piece, just for good measure.
My only quibble: our waitress disappeared for awhile right when we were ready for the check. Otherwise, service was good.

This place has been here forever! I remember when you could write all over the walls. When I was little, it was fun to write some swear word on the wall and leave satisfied knowing that someday, someone will see your artwork and may be slightly offended. A girl can dream.
Now they have signs strictly forbidding it. Gino won’t let us have fun anymore.
Ok back to the food. Eh — not as good as I remember it being. We got the deep dish supreme (sausage, onion, mushroom, green pepper) and for sounding like there are a lot of veggies — there weren’t that many on the pizza. I think I got one mushroom in my first slice. Boo.
Service was pretty good — although when you are waiting 30 minutes for one pizza, it’s kind of difficult to give shitty service when you’re not really doing much. All in all, it was just mediocre.

Good thin and their special deep dish pizza. They have this deal going where its 15 bucks for either a medium deep dish or a XLARGE thins crust with one topping and you get a side order of pasta and a pitcher of pop! sucha good deal and its not crappy food. We got a thin crust cheese and it was pretty good. The service is good as well.

I feel like Old McDonald’s entire farm is in still my stomach and it’s the next day.
These are not mere pizzas. These are like tall, giant bread bowls filled with meaty, cheesy glop. Delicious glop. The Meaty Legend is like the Noah’s Ark of deep dish pizza — except if Noah’s Ark was only filled with pigs and dairy cows — bacon, Canadian bacon, sausage, pepperoni, was there a pig ear, too? Maybe. I usually love pizza crusts, but I found Gino’s to be thick, bready, bland and kind of useless, so I just ate all of the stuff off of them. I prefer the Uno/​Pequod pan pizza to this type of deep dish easily, but this Geno’s pie was good.
Service was slow, with only one sweet waitress rushing about and working really hard, but the wait for our pizza was welcome and kind of relaxing for a Saturday night out., and there was no wait for a table. Very chill. None of the old school Geno’s wall-​scribbling was going to be tolerated or encouraged, as signage everywhere made it clear that was a no-​no.
This is a lot of food for a decent price — perfect if you need to feed a bunch of hungry athletes, kids or drunks.
E-​i E-​i O!

Service was slow, pizza was okay but forgawdsake they make pizza all day. It can’t be that hard to totally screw up pizza. Pizza could have been hotter and come faster. Waitress could have come to our table immediately instead of waiting 10 minutes. We could have been seated in a quieter section instead of next to a family full of ADHD afflicted children who kept doing the chicken dance next to our table. The family style salad could be tastier and more interesting.
Overall probably won’t go back unless we hear that the service improves enormously. Aurelio’s is just so much better.

wow this place is great. the service was amazing. the pizza was soooo good everyone loved it. the manager dustin came out and thanked us for eating there he was so nice. our server barb was so much fun!!! can’t wait to take the fam back out there again!

Because Giordano’s is the first Chicago deep dish I tried, I use it as the benchmark for rating other pizzas.
Despite all the hype, Gino’s East doesn’t measure up. They still make a damn tasty pie, but it’s not the best I’ve had.
Granted, I got the pizza as carry-​out. Also consider that I purchased from a suburbs location, whereas the Giordano’s I had was bought in the Loop.
Overall, it’s the best pizza I’ve had in the south suburbs.