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This is the blog and public record of the Chicago Pizza Club. We eat a lot of pizza and share our thoughts on it as well as post any relevant pizza news we come across.

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Monday, March 13, 2006

Waldo Cooney's Pizzeria [Meeting #26]

Waldo Cooney's Pizzeria
2410 W. 111th street GoogleMaps
773.233.9781

CPC invaded Waldo Cooney's on 3/15/06

Waldo Cooney's is a name many people associate with South Side pizza. It has 6 locations and was established in 1981. Mainly known as a take-out operation, it does have a few tables at each location. After calling another location, we chose this one because it had the most seats of any location within city limits. It had 6 tables with seating for 22. We were greeted by two high school-aged employees behind the counter. Now, maybe they thought we were older or just really lame, but I noticed halfway through the meal that the radio station they had on was playing bands like Wilson-Phillips, Celine Dion, Aaron Neville. Aaron Neville was a treat, but every other band on the radio sucked.

Ok, on to the pizza. We ordered 3 pies this time:

  • 18" Thin Crust, Sausage, Green Peppers, Onions, and Mushrooms
  • 18" Thin Crust, Green Peppers, Onions, Mushrooms
  • 14" Thick Crust, Spinach
The pies took about a half an hour to arrive, and were served unceremoniously in take out boxes. This is not an indictment of Waldo's, since they're not usually a dine-in establishment. They gave us plates and some knives and we got a free 2 liter bottle of RC-Cola. They have tons of Coca-Cola paraphernalia on their walls, but interestingly, in true South Side Style, they feature RC Cola. The pizza was, in a word, unimpressive. The two thin crust pizzas featured fresh ingredients and the sausage was average. The sauce was sweet and not overly seasoned, but was hardly present in any appreciable quantity. The thick crust pizza, not to be confused with pan or stuffed, turned out to be the winner of the bunch. I'm not sure if the spinach was fresh or not, but it tasted good and there was enough sauce so you didn't have to imagine tasting it. I think as a group we were all underwhelmed by Waldo's and it appears their reputation exceeds their quality; I hope that at some point they were able to actually meet it.

Our costs came to about $10 a person for these three pizzas. Incidentally, they have a great offer of a large slice and a pop for $2.89 if you're travelling solo.

Petey gives Waldo Cooney's a score of 4


The first victim...


Mmm... crust!


The club in action


Dave goes in for the kill!


Where it went down


Waldo Cooneys Pizza on Urbanspoon

4 comments:

Stu said...

Simply put, I hate this place. Was even more disappointed than I was at Salerno's.

They get a 3... not worth the miles & miles we traveled to eat there

Cisco said...

I don't hate it like everyone else, but I was let down. I don't even want to waste my words on this place. Very doughy, very plain, and at least cheap. If domino's is a 4.0, then I can't say this was worse.

4.5

Unknown said...

Waldo Cooney's has pretty good deep dish and a below average thin crust.

The deep: I think it's pretty similar to Giordanos. Basically there's a lot of cheese, decent sauce, and you can take or leave the big crunchy/stale end of the crust. I thought the cheese was tasty and the sauce was ok but not memorable. We got spinach and I think it would satisfy any vegetarian.

The thin: pretty average. Over-crisp on the sides and soggy in the middle. You've had this crust before. Decent amount of sauce but forgettable. Sausage was pretty poor and reminded me of tombstone. The rest of the ingredients we ordered were average.

There really isn't any point to dining in at Waldo Cooney's. The pizza still takes forever (even on a wednesday night)and the decor is high school cafeteria.

Can't really recommend trying this place since you can pretty much get this average thin crust anywhere in the city and the deep dish you can get at Giordano's with better ingredients and less wait.

5

kate-d. said...

I thought the pizza was pretty uninspired, but I did not hate it. The deep dish with the spinach was decent, very similar to Giordano's but not as good. The thin crust was your standard mediocre thin crust pizza with plain crust and chewy cheese.

4.5