Like a pigeon from the ashes
Me as well as others were honestly excited when this place showed up since I used to occasionally order from the old Pizza Hut that closed down on Western. That place was hit or miss, but when it hit (usually when ordering late at night)...MY GOD was the food good.
This place seems to pile on the ingredients without you having to ask for extra which is always great.
So this challenger shows up, there was some expectations to say the least. My appetite with the help of a 35% off coupon led me to order a large stuffed crust pizza with pepperoni, ham, and mushroom. I threw in some garlic knots, lemon pepper fries & Cinnabons for good measure. Prices were still surprisingly high for Pizza Hut with those items coming out to $36 even with 35% off.
The manager of the restaurant called and said it would take about from 1-1.5 hours for delivery and I obliged. The food arrived lukewarm about half an hour later though so don't know what was going on. Presentation wise things looked good. This place seems to pile on the ingredients without you having to ask for extra which is always great.
Even just knowing how to properly prepare standard Pizza Hut menu items would've been nice.
Once I started eating though...things took a turn for the worst. This was quite possibly the worst pizza I've ever had. The sauce was extremely metallic tasting, overpowering everything. The mushrooms didn't help either and tasted old. The cheese and meat were non-existent flavor wise. The fries were decent, but soggy. The stuffed garlic knots were super oily, very salty, and barely had any cheese inside. The only superb item was the Cinnabons (I suspect because they aren't pizza hut exclusive items) which were fluffy, perfectly cooked, and tasted like heaven. The Cinnabons come with a decent amount of cream cheese frosting on them, but I was smart enough to order extra frosting so I could smother them with goodness.
Overall, the food quality leaves a lot to be desired here. You can tell whoever is cooking the food is an amateur chef (I'm not expecting Chef Ramsey at Pizza Hut anyway) as the little things like adding sugar or orange peels to canned sauces to tone down the metallic flavor were not present. Even just knowing how to properly prepare standard Pizza Hut menu items would've been nice. Due to the location it seems you might be paying a premium too which is just not worth it.
2 out of 5 stars
Pizza Hut
2516 W. North Avenue Chicago, IL 60647
www.pizzahut.com