Great Lake Too Busy for Its Shirt

Posted by Adam Kuban, September 15, 2009 at 8:00 AM

From You're the Boss, one of the gazillion New York Times blogs, a bit on Great Lake in Chicago:

Sometimes they run out of dough by 8 p.m. and just close the restaurant. Ms. Esparza estimates that 30 percent of the customers get mad waiting. They also say that Chicago has some of the worst pizza in the nation and some of the worst customers.

Great Lake

1477 W. Balmoral Avenue, Chicago IL 60640 (map)
773-334-9270

6 Comments

Tags: Chicago, Great Lake, Illinois

6 Comments:

What does that even mean? There's nearly 10 million people in Chicago, so statistically we probably do have "some of the worst pizza in the nation, and some of the worst customers." But of course, so would New York, or Providence, or anywhere else. I've been all across the country, and proportionally we have better pizza than most any area, and while I've never owned a pizza store, so can't comment on "customers" Chicago residents tend to be nicer than, say, those of NYC.

Personally, I think Great Lakes pizza is pretty darn good, but perhaps they're getting a bit snobbish? Just because a place can't trace the genealogy of their sausage, and manages to serve pizza until a normal closing time doesn't mean they can't make delicious pies.

supagold at 11:10AM on 09/15/09

The blog post basically says "some people on Yelp are unhappy with the service but they all agree the pizza is great."

ratbuddy at 11:24AM on 09/15/09

@ratbuddy: Yes. Perhaps I should amend the post above to state that. If you've read about Great Lake enough, you already know this. I was struck by the words attributed to Esparza and Lessins that slam Chicago pizza and Chicago diners. It's almost up there with when Anthony Mangieri snubbed fellow pizza-makers in NYC.

Adam Kuban at 11:34AM on 09/15/09

I lost all respect for Mangina when he badmouthed his competition. Personally, I see New York and Chicago both as fantastic pizza destinations. Actually, Burt's probably would be #1 on my list of places to try.

ratbuddy at 9:19PM on 09/15/09

Now we know why the Tatooed Uber Pizzaiolo was so free with his words.

Ciao,

Paulie Gee

pauliegee at 9:35PM on 09/15/09

I wonder what, per the Times post, what some of the top pizzaiolos would charge for pies with an eye towards cutting wait times. I think Mangieri was pretty close around $24 per pie, as I always walked right in at UPN, even when it was decently crowded. What would Bianco have to charge for a pie? $75? He'd get a lot of angry Yelpers, but now they'd be complaining about price and not wait.

apizza82 at 10:56PM on 09/15/09

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