Underwhelmed. Looks like a nice place, big local history (been here just off the UofI campus forever), clean and comfortable. But, you can't get a dine-in pizza here in under an hour. Seems to be a point of pride; like, "we take our time to make the best," but it's merely 'good' pizza.
Atmosphere: 2
Food: 4
Service: 3
S Goldberg
Haven't been to Champaign Urbana for a long time, but always remembered Papa Del's. Here in town for a few days. Took family for pizza. Appetizer, salads and pizza was absolutely delicious. Our server, Heidi, was fantastic. So nice, courteous, attentive.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Garlic Doughnuts
Kimberley Vellenga
Great salad and pizza. Nice server.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 5
Service: 5
Mike
Pizza is good but I ordered a pepperoni stuffed pizza and I didn’t notice it did not have pepperoni until someone told me. It was too late when I found out because my little ones were hungry.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 4
Service: 4
Brianna D.
This was an amazing lunch place. I came here with low expectations, but this place was one of my favorite restaurants. I ordered chicken wings, and toasted ravioli. The toasted ravioli was amazing, I added some Parmesan cheese on top and it was even better. All our food came in under 10 minutes, it was very fast. The inside of the restrusnt is very clean, there are multiple TV's and a cool bar. Overall this place is amazing, I recommend it if you are in the area
Daniela Peña
My fiancé picked up one of their deep dish pizzas before close 2 days ago. We usually get a regular crust with pepperoni, but to shake things up a bit we decided on deep dish, and what we discovered is that for $40 they gave us half the pie without tomato sauce!! It was embarrassingly bad and doughy. Picture one half of the “pie” as 90% crust/10 cheese and the other half 90% crust/5% sauce/5% cheese.Even more embarrassingly, after emailing support to get something other than $10 voucher for this mess, they got back to us today saying there’s nothing they could do for us.Won’t be coming back ever again, at this point go to little Caesars for better quality and better service.
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 1
Service: 1
Ethan Menendez
Overpriced and bland pizza. Deep dish came with just enough sauce to cover barely half of all the slices. Majority of the slices were literally just cheese. Terrible service and even worse management avoid this place like the plague.
Food: 1
Service: 1
Gary Stow
I ordered our pizzas about 5:30 & didn't receive the 1st one until 7:18. It was a stuffed pizza but that's longer than the 65 minutes they say on the menu. The 2nd pizza came out 20 minutes after the stuffed pizza & it was thin crust but was normal crust compared to other pizza places.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 2
Service: 1
Dax L.
Pizza is always good when I visit Champaign. Sometimes the service is slow but it's always been good not bad. It's got a nice easy atmosphere with cool ambiance.
Jon Sudlow
Food is good it will take some time but the restaurant is up front about that. If it were me I would just figure out how to get the pizzas to come out faster and avoid the confusing nature of it all together. Kid and family friendly great atmosphere.
Okay, I still love the buttery, flaky crust of Lou Malnati's the most... But Papa Del's just gave us the greatest vegan pizza experience ever. The deep crust is like a fresh loaf of bread. SO good with non-dairy mozzarella!! Great service, great Bitburger N/A beer. Just an awesome meal. Thanks guys!Vegetarian options: Vegan cheese and marinara sauce. Crust is always vegan. Salads and pasta and sandwiches too!
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Vegan Cheese, Vegan, The Original Sicilian Pan Pizza, Greek Salad
Amanda Mallory
We are long time customers of papa dels and stopped by last weekend to watch the basketball game. We were greeted pleasantly and on our way to the dining room, we asked to be sat in the available booth. The waitress said that was another servers section and it would create issues if we sat there. We asked to be sat in the other area in a booth and again, she said we could not sit there due to who was next up in the rotation. We told her we didn’t care who served us but wanted to sit in a booth. We were told we could not be sat there. I’ve worked in restaurants and understand the rotation, but the booth and table were right next to each other. It didn’t make much sense to us why the 2 servers couldn’t trade. While we were eating, we watched 3 other parties get denied booth seating for the same reason. This may seem petty but it really rubbed us the wrong way. The pizza was delicious. Crust tasted very fresh and wasn’t hard/overcooked like it can be sometimes. More flexibility from the hostess would have made it a more enjoyable visit.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 4
Recommended dishes: The Original Sicilian Pan Pizza
Pranav Krishnan
Heard so much about this Champaign institution that we had to try it! Ambience and service was great, although we did go at a non-peak time. The Arancini was incredible - bursting with flavor and extremely well done. Tasted like a dish costing twice as much.Pizza was a little less to my taste (got the slice of the week, with spinach and onion) - the base was a little too soggy for my liking. But to be expected since this was a single slice. My feeling is that the whole freshly made pizza pies are a lot better. Note: slices are large and loaded with a large amount of sauce and cheese! Very affordable for the quantity.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 4
Service: 5
Dawn E
Dietary restrictions: Gluten free pizza and pasta
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 5
Service: 4
Ann K.
We loved PapaDel's when we went to school in C-U in the 70's, and so when we returned, we wanted to see if the pizza was as good as we remembered! Well, let's just say, once you've had Papa Del's, there is no pizza that's better. The original Sicilian deep dish pizza is cheesy, with a delicious sauce and light crust. Although it's no longer at the original location on campus, we were pleased that they had renovated the old Coca-Cola bottling plant on Neil Street that has plenty of ambiance and nostalgia. We had the pleasure of chatting with the originator of the brand, Robert Monti, who couldn't have been nicer. He takes pride in his business and certainly wants his customers to enjoy their time at PD's. If you want to experience a piece of C-U history, be sure to enjoy a slice of pizza at Papa Del's
Underwhelmed. Looks like a nice place, big local history (been here just off the UofI campus forever), clean and comfortable. But, you can't get a dine-in pizza here in under an hour. Seems to be a point of pride; like, "we take our time to make the best," but it's merely 'good' pizza.
Atmosphere: 2
Food: 4
Service: 3
Haven't been to Champaign Urbana for a long time, but always remembered Papa Del's. Here in town for a few days. Took family for pizza. Appetizer, salads and pizza was absolutely delicious. Our server, Heidi, was fantastic. So nice, courteous, attentive.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Garlic Doughnuts
Great salad and pizza. Nice server.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 5
Service: 5
Pizza is good but I ordered a pepperoni stuffed pizza and I didn’t notice it did not have pepperoni until someone told me. It was too late when I found out because my little ones were hungry.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 4
Service: 4
This was an amazing lunch place. I came here with low expectations, but this place was one of my favorite restaurants. I ordered chicken wings, and toasted ravioli. The toasted ravioli was amazing, I added some Parmesan cheese on top and it was even better. All our food came in under 10 minutes, it was very fast. The inside of the restrusnt is very clean, there are multiple TV's and a cool bar. Overall this place is amazing, I recommend it if you are in the area
My fiancé picked up one of their deep dish pizzas before close 2 days ago. We usually get a regular crust with pepperoni, but to shake things up a bit we decided on deep dish, and what we discovered is that for $40 they gave us half the pie without tomato sauce!! It was embarrassingly bad and doughy. Picture one half of the “pie” as 90% crust/10 cheese and the other half 90% crust/5% sauce/5% cheese.Even more embarrassingly, after emailing support to get something other than $10 voucher for this mess, they got back to us today saying there’s nothing they could do for us.Won’t be coming back ever again, at this point go to little Caesars for better quality and better service.
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 1
Service: 1
Overpriced and bland pizza. Deep dish came with just enough sauce to cover barely half of all the slices. Majority of the slices were literally just cheese. Terrible service and even worse management avoid this place like the plague.
Food: 1
Service: 1
I ordered our pizzas about 5:30 & didn't receive the 1st one until 7:18. It was a stuffed pizza but that's longer than the 65 minutes they say on the menu. The 2nd pizza came out 20 minutes after the stuffed pizza & it was thin crust but was normal crust compared to other pizza places.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 2
Service: 1
Pizza is always good when I visit Champaign. Sometimes the service is slow but it's always been good not bad. It's got a nice easy atmosphere with cool ambiance.
Food is good it will take some time but the restaurant is up front about that. If it were me I would just figure out how to get the pizzas to come out faster and avoid the confusing nature of it all together. Kid and family friendly great atmosphere.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 3
Restaurantji Recommends
Okay, I still love the buttery, flaky crust of Lou Malnati's the most... But Papa Del's just gave us the greatest vegan pizza experience ever. The deep crust is like a fresh loaf of bread. SO good with non-dairy mozzarella!! Great service, great Bitburger N/A beer. Just an awesome meal. Thanks guys!Vegetarian options: Vegan cheese and marinara sauce. Crust is always vegan. Salads and pasta and sandwiches too!
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Vegan Cheese, Vegan, The Original Sicilian Pan Pizza, Greek Salad
We are long time customers of papa dels and stopped by last weekend to watch the basketball game. We were greeted pleasantly and on our way to the dining room, we asked to be sat in the available booth. The waitress said that was another servers section and it would create issues if we sat there. We asked to be sat in the other area in a booth and again, she said we could not sit there due to who was next up in the rotation. We told her we didn’t care who served us but wanted to sit in a booth. We were told we could not be sat there. I’ve worked in restaurants and understand the rotation, but the booth and table were right next to each other. It didn’t make much sense to us why the 2 servers couldn’t trade. While we were eating, we watched 3 other parties get denied booth seating for the same reason. This may seem petty but it really rubbed us the wrong way. The pizza was delicious. Crust tasted very fresh and wasn’t hard/overcooked like it can be sometimes. More flexibility from the hostess would have made it a more enjoyable visit.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 4
Recommended dishes: The Original Sicilian Pan Pizza
Heard so much about this Champaign institution that we had to try it! Ambience and service was great, although we did go at a non-peak time. The Arancini was incredible - bursting with flavor and extremely well done. Tasted like a dish costing twice as much.Pizza was a little less to my taste (got the slice of the week, with spinach and onion) - the base was a little too soggy for my liking. But to be expected since this was a single slice. My feeling is that the whole freshly made pizza pies are a lot better. Note: slices are large and loaded with a large amount of sauce and cheese! Very affordable for the quantity.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 4
Service: 5
Dietary restrictions: Gluten free pizza and pasta
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 5
Service: 4
We loved PapaDel's when we went to school in C-U in the 70's, and so when we returned, we wanted to see if the pizza was as good as we remembered! Well, let's just say, once you've had Papa Del's, there is no pizza that's better. The original Sicilian deep dish pizza is cheesy, with a delicious sauce and light crust. Although it's no longer at the original location on campus, we were pleased that they had renovated the old Coca-Cola bottling plant on Neil Street that has plenty of ambiance and nostalgia. We had the pleasure of chatting with the originator of the brand, Robert Monti, who couldn't have been nicer. He takes pride in his business and certainly wants his customers to enjoy their time at PD's. If you want to experience a piece of C-U history, be sure to enjoy a slice of pizza at Papa Del's