Mud Puddle Pizza

Mud Puddle’s is the place to go for awesome deep-​dish pizza, homemade root beer, and friendly service. The deep-​dish pizza is made in a cast iron skillet and tastes absolutely delicious. The owners are friendly and recognize repeat customers. Mud Puddles is a no-​frills, restaurant with a down-​home feel. The owners are music enthusiasts and we’ve been lucky enough to catch some awesome live music here, too.

Such a gem for East Peoria! In house brewed beer and root beer. .Pizza is wonderful.. love the crazy décor… love the pIzza!

Many previous reviews remark on the slow service. Just know what to expect when you come here. This is not fast food. They create most everything by hand piece by piece and that kind of quality and care takes time and attention.
They brew their own beer and root beer. That’s awesome. The bitter beers were pretty good. The lemonade is fresh hand made.
They make their bread. Including Texas Toast.
Their mozzarella pucks are fantastic. They use mozzarella and veggies from their pizzas to hand make and dip these delightful remnants into delishishniss.
The pizza is pretty good and I normally don’t prefer fire oven pizzas. They are charred black on top but if you prefer less blackened pizza just tell your server.
They brought in fresh wood to fuel the oven. I saw it. This is not charcoal fire pizza. This is the real deal.
Our server was sweet and patient.
Live music is a huge bonus.
The place is old and eclectic. It’s kind of smelly, too.
Overall, the care put into fresh quality products outweighs the downsides. Looking forward to visiting again next time I am in town.

Not the best wood fired pizza in this area. Soft and chewy crust, bland sauce, not sure if the sausage wasn’t hamburger. Tired interior and high prices.

Had a great time with great food (especially the root beer). Brought 20+ people in and the staff was friendly and accommodating. Pizzas came out fast, hot and delicious.
Staff was fast and courteous. Coming back next time we are in the area.
Must try!

Good pizza and great atmosphere! They also have live music ok the weekends and that is always a plus in my book. You can’t go wrong with the brick oven pizza. I would give this place five stars but I feel like a restaurant like this should have a popular menu item that you can’t get anywhere else, something to put them on the map… And they don’t, not yet anyway.

I ordered the tomato basil pizza and it was a puddle of perfection. The fire brick oven cooked our orders with love. The owners have their own style but they are the sweetest people I’ve ever met while in town. I would definitely go back to try anything they make. There are good souls in Mud Puddles.

As much as I wanted to like this pizza I just can’t. We walk in and almost left just because it was freezing in there, we didn’t. I ordered garlic sticks with cheese and they had no flavor. Very bland and dipping sauce (marinara) was bland as well. I like a good garlic flavor to my bread.
I hoped the pizza coming would make up for the tasteless bread, sadly it did not! The pepperoni didn’t even have much flavor. The only flavor of the pizza was the burnt crap from the wood fired oven. Blah.

I discovered Mud Puddle when I happened to take Meadows from Morton to EP one day. We took my brother-​in-​law there for dinner when he was in for the weekend. I was pretty excited about it from all of the reviews I’d seen on Unilocal.
We walked in, and there were only a few other tables seated. The seating is a hodge podge of tables and old school booths. The restaurant is split into three sections in the back… I believe they had two band setups on each end, and were projecting Gilligan’s Island in the middle (episode where the Howells try to start a country club :). We sat at a large table in the middle, in front of Gilligan’s Island. We sat there for about 7 – 10 min with no one saying hi to us even, though the restaurant was not even close to busy. Eventually an older woman (I assume one of the owners?) came over so I was thinking we’d be helped — nope — just turning down the volume of Gilligan. She did this from a weird little office type set up which is in the middle of the restaurant. There was a small bar table that held a laptop, which was playing the show, and then below that was a printer and some other computer-​y equipment. Just seemed like an odd spot for that. Anyways, she made a general comment about the show/​volume, and walked away. No «server will be right with you» or anything like that. Eventually one of the servers did come over and took our drink order. The service overall was unimpressive — we waited a lot, she hardly came to check on us or refill drinks, and we had to go up to the counter at the end to get our bill. Paying our bill took forever, and we’re still not sure we were charged correctly — everything was done on a hand calculator. Multiple times, I suppose to check the numbers? Again, the restaurant was nowhere near full. I wouldn’t want to go when every table is filled.
The food — we started with Garlic Cheesy Sticks. They were really good! Basically they are just a pizza without sauce, with some garlic added. For our meal we ordered a taco pizza and a sausage and pepperoni pizza. I loooove taco pizza. This one, I did not love. I don’t generally like the normal meats that come on a pizza like sausage and pepperoni. So the taco pizza is perfect because usually its taco type ground meat. Not on this one — its just their regular sausage. Now, I did know this going in because it clearly says it in the description, but I still wanted to give it a chance. To us, it just tasted like a sausage pizza with lettuce and tomatoes on top. The guys said that the pepperoni and sausage pizza was fine, nothing special though. One thing that really has stuck with me (and them — we still talk about it and our visit was in Oct 2013) is the huge pile of napkins we produced because there is some kind of black dust that gets all over your hands when you eat. It didn’t affect the taste of the pizza but it was not pleasant, and a big reason I probably wouldn’t go back.
As others have mentioned, and I kind of covered before, the ambiance is… weird. Its like they bought an old building filled with stuff and then just moved the junk around to make space for tables. Its not cute, its not kitschy, its messy. Also there was a poster that looks like it was misprinted (Mud Puddle Pizza was half cut off at the top) but it was still hung up. It was pretty dark inside and just seemed like the owners put zero time or effort into making the space comfortable. Overall, can’t recommend it, though the food was ok, it was nothing special and not worth dealing with the service.

I can still smell the wood fire! It’s an unexpected treat to eat here. The atmosphere isn’t special but it’s quirky and relaxed. For some reason I just love it anyway! Great fresh ingredients.

We were looking for local pizza and found Mud Puddle. We were greeted by the smell of the wood fired oven, which was a great start. The décor is eclectic, which is very cool and hip, but the place needed a good cleaning. The staff was authentically friendly, and even let us sample the home brew root beer, which was delicious!
The pizza came in an appropriate amount of time, and the eye appeal was very good. The toppings were plentiful, but not one was overwhelming. The pizza tasted of good quality ingredients. I LOVED the lightly charred edges, but one one small edge of the crust, it seemed to be sitting in charcoal dust. My wife didnt find any of it, and although it was gritty and unpleasant in my teeth, it was a small portion so i didnt complain. We enjoyed the overall taste of the pizza, but the pizza dough seemed to need a little salt.
Overall, it was a good value. The owners wife rang us up, and was very friendly. I dont think I heard anyone say «Thanks for coming», but we felt welcomed and will return when we want good artisan pizza. (I hope they clean a little bit)

Returned again to Mud Puddle. Pizza was good as always, this time the outside edge was burnt all round, inside of just a little, but it was good. We also got wings, they were tasty with a nice BBQ glaze, but they were small, very little meat on them.
The downside, the service was so disorganized. It was very crowded compared to the other times we have been there, so maybe it is just growing pains. Hopefully, they will implement a system that can handle the crowd. We had at least 4 different servers and still managed to be neglected. They never cleared the table of anything and rarely checked on us. I guess all four always assumed one of the other 3 would take care of us.
Also, we wanted to try their Mud Puddle, but they were out. They just got their license and could not handle the demand. I will return for some ale and pizza. And hopefully, one competent waitress.

This place smells like a campfire, which I love.
The owners, Jeff and Sue, I believe, are very friendly, personable and make it easy to want to come back.
The pizza is also fantastic. My partner and I tried the day’s special: pork loin and roasted chicken on the Works and BBQ Chicken, respectively.
They were both fantastic. I usually require red pepper flakes with my pizza and was pleased to find that both pizzas had a good amount of zip without the flakes.
On another visit, we tried The Works (sans daily special pork) and the Tomato Basil. They were also delicious.
The fried mushrooms are also a treat. I typically stay away from fried foods due to health restrictions, but this was not oily and NOT gastric distress inducing. I (and my gut) were pleasantly surprised.
They have live music on the weekends, which I have not checked out, but seems like it would be a cozy atmosphere for some music, good beer and pizza.

Excellent crispy fire oven pizza. Decent beer selection, and occasionally good bands to drink to. Very friendly staff. Will definitely go back

Other Unilocalers have said this before: a restaurant cannot make it on food alone.
The pizza was delicious! Wood firing gives the pizza a unique and great flavor. Lots of cheese, which is always a thumbs up in my book. We had no problem devouring our pizza. We also ordered breaded mushrooms. These had the strangest breading on them. Think the consistency of funnel cake bread (without the sweetness). I didn’t care for them at all, but husband ate the rest of the basket and said he liked them.
The atmosphere will only get 2 stars. It was strange, to say the least. It was not busy, and we went to the back room, not knowing that there would be live music going on. The room was practically empty, only 2 other tables with customers. The musicians were very young, probably high school or college. It was awkward, but we didn’t feel comfortable moving to another spot. Many people like live music with their dinners… we just didn’t care for it. We’ll just sit in the front room next time.
I realize this is a small, family-​owned restaurant, but I think they could do a little better than patio furniture and folding chairs and mismatched tables in their dining areas. Hey, maybe they’re just getting started… but I think making the atmosphere a little more professional would draw in more business. Maybe that is why this place was not busy on a Saturday night, because otherwise the food was great!

OMG, I can’t remember the last time I had pizza this good. Wood fired brick oven makes the best pizza. The owners were very friendly. We had pizza, beer and fried mushrooms. The oven is fired up on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. When we mentioned how hard it was to find pizza cooked like this they asked if we wanted to see the oven. We went back to see a brick oven the owners built themselves. Please step away from the chain pizza places and stop here. Your mouth will thank you. I was in town for the weekend and we had no problem finding the place (although I can’t say the same for the hotel).

On short notice we called and got reservations for 12 for my daughters bachelorette party and we were pleasantly surprised! We had great service excellant pizza and so much fun! The girls were even given a tour of the brick oven and hobart mixer! Thanks mud puddles for everything!

Dining here is a truly strange experience. First, best of luck finding it, as there seems to be no signage beyond the marquee sign out front. Second, I mean, what is this place called anyway? The website goes back and forth between calling it «Chef Evo» and «Mud Puddle,» and the large print on the menu in the restaurant calls it «Chef Evo,» but there’s a small print note on the bottom that calls it «Mud Puddle.» Last, as has been mentioned, it feels like this is a restaurant some guy is opening in his basement, but he hasn’t actually finished the transformation yet. There’s patio furniture in the middle of the room.
Ah, but the pizza. The pizza is good. The crust manages to be brilliantly crisp and almost fluffy at the same time. The sauce is lovely. The toppings can be hit-​or-​miss. Mine were okay, but I’ve heard they can be pretty weak sometimes, like canned mushrooms, or a tomato basil pizza made with canned tomato and dried basil. And there’s way, way too much cheese. I know that it’s a weird complaint, but believe me, there is such a thing as too much cheese on a pizza, and Evo/​Mud Puddle/​Some Dude With A Restaurant accomplishes it. I’ll be asking for mine light on the cheese in the future.
There’s live music on Friday and Saturday nights, which you may like or may not. I’m usually not a big fan of live bands during my dinner, but there are two separate dining areas, so you can avoid feeling like you got trapped at a concert.
The service here is very friendly but also a bit informal. You get your first mug of (delicious house-​made) root beer delivered and are then invited to get your (free, holy crap!) refills from the tap yourself. You may have to hunt someone down if you need something, but no one acts put-​upon when you ask. It all contributes to the «some dude’s basement» feeling, but it’s actually kind of nice; it almost feels like family.
If you like pizza and are on a mission to find the best in Peoria, your quest may end here, so give it a shot. But seriously: light on the cheese.

Brick Oven pizza had to come to Peoria someday, and we’re fortunate that an independent pizza maker /​college student named Evan Hickerson, was the one to bring it. His story is part of the allure behind the restaurant and the food. While in college, he lost his scholarship money, and had to come up with a way to pay for his engineering degree. His father owned a building (that I think looks more like a house) that had a small coffee shop in it, and one day the owner of that shop just skipped town. The space sat empty for a little bit until Evan decided he wanted to do pizza. He searched for an oven first, but quickly determined he couldn’t afford one. So, he and his father built their own! Brick by brick, with lots of concrete. It’s fired up only with wood that Evan personally chops. You can see the 10 foot tall pile of wood around the back of the place.
At first glance, this small eclectic pizza place looks like a cross between a cracker barrel and someone’s family room. Mismatched furniture, a 3 stool bar, a fully equipped stage, and a golf simulator. But that’s what makes this place great! The pizzas are perfectly put together with care. Secret recipes for the dough and the sauce add to the mystery of Mud Puddle Pizza. Once out of the oven, it’s nicely charred crust pairs perfectly with the fresh vegetables and meats he puts on top. Veggies are bought locally whenever possible, and the sausage is ground fresh in the kitchen using an antique grinder a patron gave them. Root Beer is made fresh by Evan each morning, and they only carry hand crafted micro-​brewed beers.
I could see how some in Peoria would be hesitant to try this newcomer, but I’ve gotta say, for anyone into a more authentic Italian pizza, this is the THE place! Here in Chicago, we’ve got tons of this pizza now, but not the atmosphere that comes with Mud Puddle. Do yourself a favor, and get there quick, before the rest of Peoria wakes up!
(2 local papers just ran HUGE articles on the place, so I’m afraid my secret may be out)