Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria

Awful. Very poorly managed location. I’ve never seen more staff standing around when multiple people are waiting on their carry out orders for 20+ minutes. So far 27 mins past when I was supposed to pick up my order (missing the entire 4^th quarter of the finals NBA game). The owner should fire management as they’re bleeding money.

Pizza was supposed to be ready for pick up at 9:05… Waited 25 min without any update from anyone and the manager hands me the pizza without even saying I apologize for it being a bit late. Disappointed.

In the battle for Chicago deep dish supremacy, everyone has their opinion. This review is not to take on that epic battle but to share some ways to make your experience at Lou’s in Downtown Naperville as memorable as possible. And while this review is for Naperville, I’ve found these apply to all the sit down ones!
The Naperville Experience is one of my favorites. It situated in a great location with nice outdoor seating that let’s you take in the views. The ambiance is an old firehouse mixed with a small town 16 inch softball feel. The staff is amazing and will get to know you by name after just your third visit. My kids call the manager Aunt Chrissy and she is flat out amazing! They do a great job with parties and other events — you are treated like gold.
First Timer Experience/​What to Expect
1. Expect to wait if you go during the evening. Lines can get hectic and it gets quite cramped in there. If you want to avoid lines, go on the weekends for lunch or before 4:30pm any day.
2. Don’t pre-​order. Yes. It speeds things up but I always felt the pizza quality is less
3. Block Out the Menu! There is a lot going on with a Lou’s menu and many good things, but first timers need to stick with the classic deep dish and a pizza cookie at the end.
4. This is a ripe tomato sauce is on sweet and tangy side. If you are expecting savory, the sauce won’t be the spot for it but you get a killer combination of sweet and savory with butter crust as well as sausage and pepperoni.
What to Order: Pizza Recommendation
1. The Foundational Experience: Deep Dish Cheese with Butter Crust | the Malnati Classic (sometimes we add light pepperoni)
2. The Adventure Experience: Deep Dish Extra Cheese, Sausage (full patty), Pepperoni, Garlic, and Hot Giardiniera. Packs a wic
3. The Unexpected: The Crustless Pizza
4. The Kids/​Picky Ones: The thin pizza is pretty darn good and kids that are less inclined to enjoy the heavy sauce and toppings of a deep dish really take to this pizza.
What to Order: Other Items to Try
1. French Fries: It sounds odd. I absolutely adore their curly fries. I find with the sweet sauce that is Lou’s, the salty/​savory concept of fries is great.
2. Salad: We like the Family House with House Red Wine Vinaigrette or the Sweet Vinaigrette
* again, plenty you can get and we’ve tried most. I just don’t see much of a point if coming to Lou’s for the other aspects.
Tips
1. BIG THING: This is huge. Only order Medium Pizzas. The distribution of a Lou’s medium is perfect. Anything larger and the center is soggy and anything smaller hinders the crust. We get two mediums for our family and it is perfect!
2. Crust: Do make it Butter crust
3. Sausage: the traditional sausage at Lou’s is a sheet (we call it a hockey puck). I love sausage but it is too much for me so I ask for sausage crumbles.
4. Save Room for Dessert: The Chocolate Chip Pizza is to die for especially post pizza. However, do the big one. The little ones get too soupy. I do wish they brought back on the Peanut Butter Pizza (no one seems to believe me about this one)
5. Well done is something that I personally like but only when I do extra cheese, sausage, and pepperoni. It doesn’t work well with just cheese and I’m ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ with those that have tried well done.
6. Great New Year’s Eve party for families!

Deep dish pizza was on my Chicago area bucket list. They made my deep dish pizza dreams come true

My first review! Hands down, my favorite place for pizza. Love this pizza. Love the downtown location. My daughters absolutely love it here, too. It can get a bit crowded at times and wait times can be lengthy, but it’s worth it. Always have to hit the gym after eating a few slices.

First of all, I love Lou’s pizza. It’s not my favorite Chicago style but it’s always good. However, this visit was a bit disappointing.
We got there and they told us it’d be a 45 minute wait but we ended up waiting for over an hour. Once we sat down, it took 15 mins to get drinks. We finally ordered and it took a while to get the pizza out, which is expected. (Tip: You must have lots of patience for Chicago style pizza) But then what really annoyed me is the waiter brought out our pizza and say it down next to us. Then he disappeared for about 5 minutes with us just sitting there, salivating for a taste of the pizza.
Overall, the pizza is great. You can’t go wrong with Chicago style pizza. The atmosphere is casual and fun. However, this location seemed very slow-​moving. I would suggest going to another Lou’s or another pizza place, unless you have the time and patience for slow service.

Throughout the dinnertime hours of Saturday, May 28, this location had a problem with central air in the restaurant (81 degrees Fahrenheit, according to their thermostat). Also, one of their ovens stopped working, which resulted in much longer wait times for every customer that evening. Although my group of six people waited nearly two full hours for our two deep dish pizzas, management didn’t charge us at all for our entire order. More importantly, both pizzas tasted great!
It took a tremendous amount of courage and integrity for their staff to accept everything which happened in their restaurant that night and make it right for the customers. While losing our money on a busy Saturday night is the last thing they would want, this kind of care for great customer service speaks loudly for how well this location is managed. I will most definitely continue to do business with this Malnati’s location. Kudos to the Downtown Naperville staff!

I visited this place this week with some family members that were looking for some good pizza. We settled on this place and were seated promptly. After this however our experience went a bit down hill.
We were hungry and ordered bruschetta, pizza, and meatballs from our waiter. The bruschetta came fairly fast but we never saw our waiter again after that. After waiting for about 45 minutes after the bruschetta another waitress delivered our pizza. We were excited to eat it but we were disappointed that the pizza was cold. The cheese wasn’t warm and the plate it was cooked on was room temp. It even had the look of a pizza that had been sitting out for a while. Needless to say we were disappointed (the meatballs also never came nor were they rung up in the computer).
Since we were disappointed the waitress brought over the manager. He was awkward and not really sure how to handle the situation but ended up offering the pie for free. That was an Ok response but you could tell he was just trying to stop talking to us.
TLDR; I ended up eating a cold slice of pizza that was OK and the service was subpar from the wait staff to the management.

This is my fave deep dish pizza spot out of all of them. Sorry, Giordano. Sorry, Connie. Sorry, other guy. Lou is boss.
This specific location is fun because it’s an old firehouse. Before that it was a police station with a little jail (source: my eight year old). We like to speculate that it was a haunted jail and that the creepy boy doll/​mannequin that they have suspended from the ceiling in the back dining room might just come awake when the restaurant is closed. He’s also probably watching us eat, looking to see if we are his long lost family so that he can follow us home and…
Too scary!
Also, the pizza is great. We usually stick with the deep dish sausage or the Lou, which is a veggie pizza. The thin crust is really good too, so give it a shot. Salads are good and there’s beer. All boxes checked — Lou gets five stars.

Such amazing Chicago style pizza. This place was suggested to me by someone who lives here, as I am just visiting, and have to say this was a great suggestion. They have some amazing deep dish pizza and awesome salad. I would definitely come back for my next visit to Chicago and would suggest this place to anyone else that is visiting Chicago.

LOU’S NEVER DISAPPOINTS!
Had a great dinner last night! Called ahead to have order started as soon as we arrived. Great way to cut wait time.
Was immediately greeted at our table by Brian, with a friendly smile and a offer for something drink. Pizza came out quite quickly and tasted as amazing as ever… Crisp crust, perfectly seasoned sausage, and just the right amount of cheese and tomatoes.
Whether with a bunch of kids after a game or just for a quick date night, Lou’s downtown Naperville is a great stop.

Place is awesome… period! If you are a giordanos fan you’ll change teams very quickly!
The one thing you must know you gotta block off a couple hours if you decide to eat here. Yes the pizza takes awhile but to grab a seat is the real killer on time. The wings are great too, eve though they’re kinda small the flavor on the buffalou is delicious. Oh and their homemade ranch is outstanding! If they took reservations, we would be there every Saturday night and also become very fat!

Listen carefully. Trust me when I say that this is going to be very helpful information for you, so listen up. When coming here, you should only get the Lou. Seriously trust me on this. I am a meat lover and this pizza has none. Although the Lou might not have any meat, this is the only exception I make. If you don’t like the Lou you are better off going to Giordano’s. I came here with a group of 10 and we had to wait almost 2 hours without reservation on a Saturday night around 6:00PM (got seating at 8:00PM). Overall, the pizza at Lou Malnati’s is slightly underwhelming in size compared to Giordano’s and the only pizza worth getting is the Lou.
SPECIAL TIP: For folks over 21, if you ever get the Lou for take-​out or eat here, make sure you get some wine. Wine+The Lou is a dream duo. Trust me on this one.

You can really never go wrong with Lou’s. We got here at about 7:30pm on a Saturday night and there was an hour wait and it was a full hour. We pre-​ordered our deep dish while we were waiting but it still took over a half hour to come after we were seated.
Always get their deep dish and prepare to wait!

For a city known for pizza, I was incredibly unimpressed with the quality of food. We got thin crust and the famous deep dish crust. Neither of which tasted good. To match that, the service was terrible. Our waiter either ignored or forgot all of our requests. She was also hardly seen until the end of the meal when we were rushed out.
All in all, If you’re here on vacation and want a classic Chicago pizza, I’d try somewhere else.

I love Lou’s! Not just because they have amazing deep dish pizza (Lou’s special!) and not because it used to be the firehouse, but the atmosphere is perfect for families! There are a few TVs, but they’re not loud or overwhelming. There’s a lot to look at, which makes it fun for kids (I spy…) but it’s not too kitschy; rather, the walls are filled with artefacts and Chicago history.
The service is usually pretty great. The pizzas take a while but so an appetiser is in order to share with the table.
In the warmer weather, they have the outdoor seating avail me. My favourite place to sit is at a high table, right under the large garage doors (I trust they won’t fall). Perfect for watching what’s going on downtown Napes!

I went here for dinner and it was so good!
There were 5 of us, so we ordered a large deep dish pepperoni pizza (pictured) and a thin crust medium. This was the perfect amount of food for us as there was only 1 deep dish piece left at the end!
I had two pieces of the deep dish pizza and it was amazing! You certainly have to eat it with a knife and fork, and it’s worth good to the last bite!

I’ll start this review by declaring that I’m not a deep dish pizza fan, but… I’ve been to Lou’s many times over the years and just order other things and enjoy it each time.
The best thing on their menu is the Malnati’s salad-​lettuce mix with crunchy bacon, gorgonzola chunks, diced tomatoes, olives and a sweet dressing.
Their thin crust pizza is good-​crust on that as well as the deep dish is excellent. Sauce is decent-​a little too chunky tomato-​ey for me-​but ingredients (meats as well as vegetables) are fresh and they’re not skimpy on the cheese! The deep dish cookie sundae is… awesome!
Lively atmosphere inside the restaurant-​the old Naperville fire house-​with a back room for larger parties. Take out works as well-​enter on the side door on the east side of the building and they do quite a business on their own.

I finally moved to the Chicago suburbs and wanted to try some deep dish pizza for the first time… well Chicago style deep deep dish for the first time.
And the fact there is some deep dish pizza in downtown Naperville where all the cool restaurants, shops and bars are located was a plus.
And this is a sit down place too, they have other locations where it’s just pick-​up only. Very big with outdoor seating, bar seating and more seating in the back. And you can taste all the flavors oozing out of the deep dish pizza especially Lou’s specialty.
Definitely fills you up after a couple of slices. Just enough of toppings where it doesn’t saturate your palette and you can taste all the goodness.
Desserts are designed for 2 or more, but they have individual size ones too and I had the warm cookie with ice cream. Nice way to finish my meal.

This place reminds me of bucca di beppo which is an Italian chain. I came to Chicago to visit and one of the top things on my to try list was obviously deep dish pizza. After much research and consulting my fellow Unilocalers, I decided to go for Lou malnatis. I went in with high expectations but was slightly disappointed.
We called ahead of time to order our pizza and after we arrived still had to wait a long time before it was ready. The first bite did taste heavenly but after that it got just a bit much. The crust seemed like a pie crust so it was a bit weird. There was just also too much cheese and not enough flavor. I am not sure if I’m just not a huge fan of deep dish or this place just didn’t deliver. I’ll definitely try another place if I visit Chicago again. Their individual sized salads can feed a whole family lol.