Graciano’s Chicago Deep Dish & Speakeasy

I’m a little horrified by these five star reviews saying that this place is the best pizza in Sac. The pizza was mediocre at best and was very bland. The wings were terrible and lacked flavor, especially the Buffalo wings (which didn’t come with ranch). I got a personal deep dish with jalapeños. The Jalapeños were great and very spicy. The crust was burnt, and I felt like I was eating a burnt bread bowl with pizza sauce in the middle
I guess if you want a 3 dollar pbr or a 4 dollar modelo Negra on happy hour in a basement this is the place for you.
Go to Chicago fire for deep dish, or uncle vitos if your on a budget.

We ordered the deep dish and it was absolutely delicious. My kids loved it also. Dean was our waiter and he was great. Definitely will be going back.

Overall, Graciano’s is very good pizza restaurant. It’s located in the old town area of Sacramento. Coming up to it, you see that it’s underground. The inside is pretty large. There was a teens party in one of the rooms. The bar area looks pretty large and looks to have an extensive amount of alcohol for just about any drink you can imagine. There’s only one TV and it’s located in the bar. It’s pretty small at about a 32 inches. The only issue I had was the pizza itself. I’ve had some pretty good Chicago style deep dish pizza but here at Graciano’s the pizza didn’t seem very «Deep» at all. In fact, the pizza seemed almost like a regular pizza. Although the pizza wasn’t very deep, it did have a lot of flavor to it. I took some pictures for viewing.

Located in the heart old Sacramento across from the river. I came here because of the pictures of shrimp scampi however they didn’t serve that anymore. We ended up getting the 3 spot pizza with chicken on top. The crust wasn’t how I like it but the pizza overall was really tasty and I definitely recommend this to anyone who likes deep dish pizza

Amazing deep dish pizza! Probably the best pizza in sac, the crust is flaky and crispy and delicious!

We came for lunch with our kids and we’re very pleased. We called ahead and they got our food going so when we arrived our little guys wouldn’t have to wait which was very nice of them t help that way. We enjoyed the pepperoni pizza and the kale one. We were amazing how tasty the kale one was!

Zombie Freaky Tiki Night 4÷30÷16:
Was charged $ 4 for a tasty dirty shirley
for the drink special! Dawn mixed it. Soooo good.
Come every month or so for the special themed events. I came to the Freaky Tiki Zombie themed night. It was $ 14 for the pre-​sale tickets, and with burlesque, S & M demos, sexy icing on body parts demos (where lucky participants get to lick it off beautiful bodies), it’s so worth it. The attendees are a fun, friendly, and down-​to-​earth bunch.
They go all out with their costumes, without a single HINT of pretension you see at other indie events.
Usually the drinks are $ 7 when not on special, Still not bad! I also drunkenly left a piece of clothing (don’t ask) there, and they picked up the phone and found it when I described it, and made sure to mark it as mine for next time I came to claim it. Good people.
Their owner is a handsome, dapper guy, and a fellow POC! He made sure to keep the area safe and welcoming for everyone. He was actually the one to take the photo I uploaded! I had no clue he was the owner when I asked
for it. Great, down-​to-​earth guy. Hats off to a wonderful establishment!

Hidden gem really. This place is delicious. The service however NEEDS IMPROVEMENT! Big time. But over all. Cute atmosphere, friendly, and obviously delicious:) I’ll be back

Back in Sacramento, looking for signs of nightlife in Old Sacramento, I wandered into Graciano’s Chicago Deep Dish Pizza and Speakeasy– Cocktail Lounge. It was open mic night with Sexy B4 Dawn Presents «Soulful Saturday’s A Place Where a Musician can be a Musician and a Fan Of Live Music can feel at Home. An old country tune sings about «the women all get better looking at closing time» brought to mind a possible play on words for Sexy Before Dawn. but then it dawned on me perhaps it is a reference to the ‘Twilight Vampire’ series and all night party people. I’ll have to ask where the name originated.
The band however, made sexy music before 10 pm with guitar, bass/​synthesizer, drums, and keyboards. The talent that showed up was excellent, and the cover charge is well worth it, if it was just the band! The show was actually concert style seating which was refreshing, and then the crowd was great. Supportive, and enthusiastic.
The showroom was separate from the bar, and «teetotalers» were welcome as well as those who enjoyed a cocktail from the professional bartenders taking care of the packed house. With Latin Music events, Jazz, and much more, if the caliber of other shows are as good as Sexy B4 Dawn Party Promomotions,
I look forward to catching them all in the near future.
The sound engineer for this even was, Shawn Raiford, and he did a great job. (I will add names and websites soon) I had just eaten so I did not review the Italian fare. I spoke with the friendly owner, Ken Harris, with an invitation from him to return soon to do a review on the cuisine. I did watch the many dishes coming out of the kitchen for some time, and if the food is as good as the presentation and aroma, I will be a happy Italian customer… they all looked great!
This venue is not your typical Old Sacramento tourist trap and mediocre joint. It is both a first-​class family style restaurant, and entertainment destination.
see their websites for events, menus and more…

Good service with friendly staff, a cool jazzy atmosphere in old town and a uniquely satisfying, scrumptious pizza you won’t find anywhere else in Sac. House salad was large & delicious. Impressed the guests we brought, «Some of the best pizza we’ve ever had!» Live music had just started and it was getting lively. We’ll be returning for a later date night for sure and bringing more friends.

I have never been so disappointed in a meal that I had to send it back, until now. My friend and I ordered the Primavera pasta and it was watery, cold, and flavorless. I’m pretty sure they didn’t even put garlic in it, there was no seasoning and the vegetables tasted steamed. The $ 4 «bread roll» was *maybe* a quarter of a loaf of a store bought baguette I wish I was kidding. Oh and the kicker for the dissapointing bread was it somehow took 20 minutes to get it and the drink my friend ordered from the empty bar. Needless to say after a few bites of the pasta we talked to the manager paid for our drinks and the over priced bread and left. Do yourself a favor, skip this place.

Sunday nights are the best! I brought a friend here to celebrate their birthday. The Sunday Jazz atmosphere is sooooo nice and relaxing. The server/​bartender was very attentive and made sure we had everything we needed. The food was ok but nothing to rant and rave about. I had the pasta primavera. I wish it would have had more sauce and more seasoning. I would not purchase the dish again but I would try something else on the menu. I probably would have eaten somewhere else and then just came here for drinks and the live jazz. I like the fact that there is no cover charge to listen to the music which was absolutely fantastic.

By far the worst experience in Sacramento. Indicated Chicago style pizza and was not anything near. We ended up waiting over and hour with no refills and then I finally received my food and told them I’m not paying for it and paid for my drinks and left.

This was the worst pizza I have had in years. The crust was flat, hard and tasteless. It was hard to cut with a knife and fork. We scrapped off the toppings which were good. When we told them the crust was inedible they just said — sorry.

Dark atmosphere — expensive pizza and drinks but all of that could be overlooked if the pizza was good.
Sorry to say very disappointing food.

This place was great. Great food and music. Live band. Drinks are made good and not watered down wink wink. Good beer selection. The staff was cool but could use a little attention to communication between eachother. For example we made reservations for my mom’s bday a day in advance with the hostess and we’ll maybe she forgot to write it down or perhaps not at all. Maybe she got distracted? Either way point is we did wait for 25 min till we were seated. But it’s all good we had a fantastic time.

I went here last night for the Mardi Gras event. Neat décor for the occasion and tons of people! The set up is pretty neat, the porch is huge and the indoor rooms are the size they should be for underground basement type place. Only light complaint was the drinks were expensive… For how little liquor was in it. I ordered my normal Black Superman and it was lavender-​light brown purple, they are supposed to be a dark purple almost black — hence the name ‘BLACK’ Superman, my BF ordered a Ginger Beer and Jameson– they don’t carry Ginger Beer but they do carry Ginger Ale– so he got a Ginger Ale and Jameson instead and even his drink was weak for being Jameson. Those two drinks totaled $ 17… Next time I’ll pre-​drink! We didn’t order food. Over all it was fun but it’s a bummer when you go someplace to drink and are deterred from drinking because of that issue :/​awe well! I’ll keep the faith that next time it’ll be better!

Wow went in for happy hour with the family. Super excited for «Chicago Deep Dish Pizza» the drinks were good and the service from the bartender was good. Fried pickles and jalapeño were good. The pizza made me laugh. Little Ceasars regular crust is thicker than this pizza. I heard tears coming from back home in Chicago. It looked like they stuck the thinest crust New York pizza in a deep dish pan. Yes the outer edges went up so I could tell they used a pan but honestly it looked like a joke. When the bill came they «forgot» to give us happy hour prices on anything but 2 beers. My wife ordered 2 margaritas which they claimed were not «well» drinks because they used triple sec in them! WTF? Really? Then they acted like we were a pain because we wanted advertised prices. Never coming back!

This place is okay it’s alittle creepy inside but I don’t really mind that too much being it’s in old sacramento and it’s on the original first floor of this building. (Now the basement) their pizza was just sort of alright with a harder than I prefer and the sauce and the olives tasted canned… I’m sorry the olives had a dusty flavor and sort of turned both me and my mother off about the pizza. We did start the order with wings and bread with balsamic which was better. My dad said the meatball sandwich was really good so I’m giving this not too shabby speak easy 3 stars. Service was good. I will come back but not for the food probably for the bar.

Bartender is the highlight! Food is cafeteria level and I have had better frozen pizza. Staff is friendly but was let down by the food the place serves.

Unfortunately for Graciano’s, they sat me right by the kitchen where I could see more idiosyncracies than I would like to. For example, when the food was ready, the cook would ring the bell to alert the wait staff. I would watch each of the wait staff walk by as if they did not see the food or hear the bell and go behind the kitchen counter, or socialize with each other for periods of time that were not extremely long, but long enough to wonder what the actual priority of the dining establishment was. My boyfriend and I ordered a simple bread with oil appetizer and it arrived after my soup and way longer than bread should be served. We saw our dish (amongst several others) waiting patiently on the counter to be picked up by the «workers» and served to us with the warmth we wanted to experience in our first bite.
The bread dish was definitely not worth waiting for. Not only was it cool and almost stale tasting, they changed the product from the previous time I was there and for something so simple, I would almost consider not going back if they didn’t make it up elsewhere. Luckily, the kale and chickpea soup exceeded my expectations and the Graciano Burger is one of the better burgers I’ve had in awhile.
The host and wait staff were friendly, I will give them that… they didn’t turn me off with bad character, but they lacked urgency or any oomph. They would serve when they decided they felt like it and it was all done in a lackadaisical manner. I also saw some of the wait staff playing with their hair in the kitchen, which is another turn-​off to me.
I’ve gone on previous occasions and enjoyed my experience much more, so maybe the secret here is to sit outside where I originally started or out of sight of the kitchen area where I was not exposed to too much, allowing less scrutiny than necessary on my part. The only reason we didn’t sit outside this time was because of the cold-​weather season… they don’t set-​up the outside dining area during this time, and now that I think of the wait-​time we had, I think we would have froze in the meantime, anyway.
The concept of the place is definitely an attraction, being an underground speak-​easy with a fun atmosphere and live music, but they need to work on the timeliness and organization of their service to up the ante. I hope they’re not digressing over time, because the time we went a year ago was much better overall.

We had an awful experience here. The wait for food was over 50 minutes. I ordered mimosas and had to go pick them up from the bar myself since the waitress never brought them. The meat on the kids meal hamburger was red. Service was just bad. I do NOT recommend this place for the long wait alone.
The restaurant was pretty empty, the food was OK. Small plates. Left the place mad and hungry

Being a Chicago native, I have to say this is the real deal pizza I am used to. I will go nowhere else. I tried the pesto pizza first and it was divine. Best Chicago pizza in Sacramento!

Let me start with the pros:
* Staff was very friendly and attentive
* Dining room was clean
* Staff knowledgeable about menu
* Management was very kind
Now for the cons;
* The wait time! It seemed like it took forever to be served our food (almost an hour!). I ordered pasta (I’ll get to the food in a minute)
* The pasta was awful! It had too much oil.
I will say this, when I complained about the oily pasta, my waiter offered to send it back and have the chef cook me a new order. Since I had already waited close to an hour for the dish, I declined. The manager came over to my table and apologized. She was very apologetic and offered me a meal on the house. Since I was pressed for time, I declined. The staff was very accommodating. I may give this place another shot in the future because of the service… when I have time to wait.

Old Sacramento had been sorely lacking quality pizza and Gracianos fills that void really well.
Beer selection ranges from basic domestics to Speakeasy ales, Track 7 IPA and Peroni in bottles. Full bar ranges from well drinks to Buffalo Trace.
The meatballs are incredible. The servers are young but attentive. In many ways a positive because they do hustle.
Will definitely be back for more!

Po boy was Po on flavor. Presentation good that’s why 2 stars.
We waited 45 minutes for our meal.
The restaurant is location is ideal.
I left filling hungry.
I would only recommend this restaurant if you do not have an appetite and just want to hangout.

The wife and I were enjoying a Monday off of work and decided to pop in to try Graciano’s for lunch. Maybe it’s because it was a Monday afternoon, but we didn’t experience any of the service or speed problems that others have reported.
Graciano’s is located on the underground level of Old Sacramento. The stairway down is well marked and easy to see. The first thing you notice when you head downstairs is how massive the restaurant is. There is a ton of space, with a split dining room and an outdoor patio. The space is a little sparse, but it looks clean and looked nice enough for casual dining and a stiff drink.
The bar was pretty big and appeared to be well stocked. Unfortunately, I was driving and the wife is off the drinks for about 9 months, so we’ll have to come back to sample the bar offerings.
We sat outside, which was a bit of a mistake, since the trees seem to be dropping all their springtime goodies right now. It was still pretty pleasant in spit of that though.
We started off with an appetizer of fried pickles and peppers and warm bread with olive oil and balsamic.
Yes, you pay for bread here. The bread was pretty good and was toasted crisply on the outside, but still retained a light chewiness once you got through the toasted exterior. The balsamic and oil were pretty standard… the oil wasn’t anything to write home about and neither was the balsamic. The bread was good, but not worth the $ 5 it cost.
The next app was the fried pickles and peppers. They were pretty disappointing. The batter was super plain and really greasy. I don’t think their fryer is quite hot enough, because man, was the batter oily. There were only about 4 pickle slices (sliced horizontally, like a coin) and about 6 slices of what seemed to be batter covered bell peppers. The batter didn’t stick to the pickles very well and the pickles seemed to absorb a good amount of oil. The peppers were fine, but they were really thin slices. The accompanying sauce was sweet (sort of like 1000 island?) with a little bit of heat behind it, nothing special. I would not get this appetizer again… too greasy and too small. Definitely not worth the $ 8 asking price.
The deep dish pizza was really what we came for and it did not disappoint. We did a half vegetarian specialty half big house. The big half was a good standard combo pizza. The sauce was a little one dimensional, but in a really tomatoey way that wasn’t overly sweet, so it was fine. The balance of meats and veggies was fine. The crust wasn’t great, but it was good. The veggie was really good. The arugula was at perfect strength — not too strong but it had that unmistakable arugula taste, which was delicious. The arugula was perfectly matched with a nice creamy goat cheese. The tomatoes on both pizzas were also really fresh and flavorful as well. The only real complaint I had about the pizza was that one of the tomatoes still had the stem attached to it.
Overall, I enjoyed Graciano’s. The appetizers left a lot to be desired, but the pizza was satisfying. The level of service was fine on a Monday afternoon and I’d be interested to try it again in the evening to see if the complaints about speed and service are an issue. The bar and cocktail menu also looked enticing enough for me to want to come back to sample a few libations. Everyone else on the patio was enjoying a wet lunch, so next time I will too!

I would say 3.5 stars since the hostess that greeted us was super cheery.
We arrived a little after opening for the day 4.12.15 before going on our train ride so we were literally the first ones there. We had our little one in a stroller so we lifted the stroller and hauled it down the flight of stairs to the restaurant.
Oh… I get why it’s a Speakeasy. It was dark, hidden, and the décor was mimicking that of the 20’s, which was cool. The hostess asked if we wanted to be seated in out on the patio. YES PLEASE! It was too beautiful out not to be!
The patio was ok. They had a couple outdoor couches, but the tables are those cheaply-​made square things where if you have more than two people dining they have to slap two together on the uneven cobblestone ground. Throwing in some Wooden picnic tables for big parties would be a better use to the area and I think wouldn’t make it look so… Desolate out there.
We ordered a medium 2 cheese with pepperoni deep dish pizza with mushroom and jalapeños on half. I ordered the Mac and cheese for my son (Note: the Ma and cheese on the kids menu was 7.00 but the appetizer Mac and cheese was 8.00, so we went with the appetizer).
Pizza was ok, I love that they added a decent amount of jalapeños, usually if you ask for jalapeños on pizza elsewhere you get like I-​2 jalapeños per slice, but here I got one with every bite!
My favorite part of the meal was the Mac and cheese! Damn that was delish and my son almost ate it all! I would come again for the Mac and cheese.
It’s nice to have a deep dish spot in old sac, so I hope the can remain open. Definitely yummy and convenient when spending the day in old Sac.

Talked to bartender for a little bit during lunch. This place is a little disorganized. Host staff was not sure for waiting to be seated. This is my second visit as the first time store hours were inconsistently posted and was closed. I came in to use a coupon deal that bartender was unsure about the coupons and took more time to get the order moving. I am paying for parking. Signs are so confusing on days open. Most weeks closed on Tuesday except some
I decided to give it shot after reading some reviews. On a cold day it was not much improvement for heat inside of bar. It was so cold. Wish they had shut the door.
I ordered to fulfill my coupon with a pizza and ordered a drink along with some wings while I waited. Bartender was somewhat on it with the refills. Order processing was a bit slow. Bartender says my wings should be done soon only to tell me when my pizza came out that they didn’t have any of the wings. I ordered the large big house deep dish pizza.
No peppers and no cheese were available for the pizza that the bartender helped serve. The pizza was hot. The crust was flaky and had a hint of alcohol taste to it. I think the wings I had wanted had the same alcohol. The taste as result was not great but rather distracting and lost in the pie itself. The sauce was homemade and incredibly watery. The sausage and pepperoni were sparse. The vegetables of red onions, green bell peppers, and mushroom were okay. Seemed mostly fresh but thrown off the taste of crust or watery sauce. Cheese was heavy but didn’t stick to the sauce or crust. A little bit messy and logistically a challenge.
Bartender was the server for most tables and delivered the drinks. The host and wait staff were almost no where to be found through my visit. I believe there was management around but not sure what they added to experience. There was a guy advertising for the restaurant that bused the tables. My check and box came about 10 minutes after my request to leave.
This is definitely a mom and pop without the mom.
Good: small shop feel, friendly.
Bad: experience, staffing, overpriced pizza and mediocrity with food.
Friendly help can’t save lackadaisical staff and food. Just a mess as I have only so much time for lunch. Unlikely to come back. Wish I spent my money elsewhere.

Won’t be going back.
My friend gave me a Living Social coupon she paid for. I’m not sure how much she paid but the coupon was for two cocktails, two salads and a pizza. We arrived around 7:00 p.m. on a Sunday night. They had someone singing along with a guitar, it was nice. The place is all stone and it was freezing in there. And the acoustics of the building also make it very hard to hear the person sitting across from you. But we managed.
You would imagine a free meal would encourage me to rate the experience high. Unfortunately, I can not do more than 3 and that’s only because the service was good.
First drinks, the place has a full bar and the coupon entitled us to two drinks of our choice. I ordered a Zinfandel, they only had dark red, it was a fine wine for red. Jeremy ordered a cocktail, I tasted it and it was rather good.
Second the salad, they have 3 choices, Caesar, garden and then a pesto pasta salad. I ordered the Caesar and Jeremy ordered the pesto pasta. The Caesar salad arrived in a decorative manner, you can see the photo I posted on Unilocal.First I don’t like a salad delivered to me when the whole leaves are used, how can anyone stick that in their mouth without getting dressing all over their face and clothing. I had to spend 5 minutes chopping up romaine leaves. The Caesar salad had very little dressing on it and there were capers. I’ve never had a Caesar salad with capers. They really don’t add anything, good or bad, it was just unusual. The dressing which there wasn’t much of thank goodness had anchovies juice or something like that in it. Again, never ate a Caesar salad that tasted so fishy. It was disgusting. I did like the croutons.
Jeremy’s pesto pasta salad was delivered cold, and neither on of us thought it had much flavor, it was bland and the pesto seemed watered down, diluted.
Third the pizza, took about 30 minutes which it says right on the menu that they take that long. We ordered the pesto chicken. Frankly I don’t think their pizza selection is that great. They have ZERO white sauce pizzas and don’t even offer a white sauce. Which is my preferred sauce. Plenty of red sauces and of course the pesto. The pizza was flavored fine, there was however not very much chicken on the pizza, maybe about one to two pieces per slice. What was surprising about the pizza, it is made with cornmeal and NOT flour. That was really weird to me. I didn’t care for it, but it wasn’t awful.
It was a so so experience, I don’t ever need to go back. There are much better pizza places. I would also say that it is noisy in there, the table of 8 seated right next to us, which included 4 children under the age of 9 was just awful to sit next to. It was beyond noisy and Jeremy and I could hardly carry on a conversation.
By the time we finished eating I was so done with the all the noise. And I could not believe the meal cost $ 62, yes that’s crazy for two drinks, two salads and a medium sized pizza. If you decide to go, you better get a coupon.