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| Venue Outside |
The Venue
77 2nd St.
Coralville, IA 52241
(319) 248-1220
Old Chicago has
been around in various cities across the country for many years. Growing up in
Rockford IL., I recall many times meeting up with old friends from High School
there once it opened up around 2002. The Coralville, Iowa location isn't much
different from the Rockford IL. location. The same decor, the same basic menu
of foods loaded with calories and almost too many beers to count. I don't
recall seeing a pool table at the Coralville location one (although we didn't
go into the bar area, just walked by quickly). The location is actually quite a
bit larger though, with additional rooms being added on to support a larger
dinner/game crowd. The wait staff was very helpful and friendly - a good sign
for being in a busy college town. The pizza didn't take too long to cook
either. One cool thing about Old Chicago is that you can literally Google their
menu straight from your web browser (no pesky .PDF file to scan through): Menu
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| Menu |
The Pizza
Chicago Style: Yes
Crust Thickness: Thick and Thin (Average)
Our group
consisted of 5 participants, so we ordered three
pizzas. They can come in three sizes (8" = Small, 12" Medium,
14" Large), with two styles of crust, Chicago
Thick and Taven Thin (it is more
like an average thickness).
Meat Me
- Loaded with Italian sausage,
Canadian bacon, andouille sausage, pepperoni, green olive garnish, and fresh
basil (14" Large,
Chicago Thick, $24.95).
Pepperoni
- Pepperoni (12"
Medium, Chicago Thick, $16.05).
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| Pepperoni, Medium, 12", Chicago Thick Crust, $16.05 |
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| Meat Me, Large 14", Chicago Thick Crust, $23.50 |
The Verdict
The
pizza came out in circular-shaped pizzas with rectangle pieces for the Margretta
and triangular pieces for the Meat and Pepperoni pizzas. The sauce was light on
the pizza-it was good, but the pizza seemed to be a little dry and greasy. The crust wasn't soggy, but instead was a
firm bready texture. Nor was it burn or
over done. The cheese was spread across
the pizza well, without any saggy parts. The toppings were what you would
expect for a $20 pizza from a chain-good but not plentiful. The Royal
Margherita tasted much like bruschetta instead of pizza, so be warned, if you
don't care for Basil, I would suggest skipping it altogether. For me the flavor
of the sausage didn't seem quite right on the Meat Me (it tasted a bit sweat),
so I opted to go with the Pepperoni. The flavor of the Pepperoni and cheese
seemed to be much more complementary. Old Chicago serves up good average pizza.
Overall the Pepperoni won the votes as the favorite in our participant pool.
Currently, our average is a 7.75 so Old Chicago is clearly on the top half of
our list for places to try. A weeknight
may be best as it can get quite busy on the weekend, especially if a Iowa game is going on in town.
Here are our ratings,
where 1 = worst and 10 = best.
Overall 7.90
Overall 7.90
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| Royal Margherita, Large 14", Taven Thin Crust, $20.95 |
Cheese 8.40
Sauce 7.40
Topping 8.60
Crust 8.40
Venue 8.50
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