This place is AMAZING! Excellent authentic Italian and excellent service! I visit every time I'm…read moreback in Illinois. The ziti and lasagna are outstanding!

The food was very very good. The fresh bread amazing. The service was friendly, helpful and made…read moreus feel very welcoming. The ambience was well worth the visit. It is nice and clean and comfortable we enjoyed being able to eat good food and relax and talk. 5 STARS.

It was a busy graduation weekend but the owner was able to accommodate our part of 9 at a large…read moretable out of the main dining area. Our server was super busy but yet prompt and attentive. The pizzas were perfection. Amazing crust. Delicious toppings. We had the Italian salad to share. The basil dressing was incredible. The cheese plate was better than we expected. Delicious cheeses. What I think was soft, warm pizza crust, fig preserves. Soooo good! We thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend it. Apparently I lived in the moment and did not take a single photo!

Tip: the crushed tomatoes bring a classic, delicate flavor to the pizzas. However, they also bring…read morea good deal of moisture. After a slice or two, the pizza crust gets soggy and loses its crisp -- the whole point of Neapolitan pizza! Pizzas with meat mostly sidestep the issue by omitting the tomato. Vegetarians should take particular note of the platters, which serve seasoned slices of bread made from the pizza dough. Also, consider the Bianca pizza, which is just topped with cheese. Also note: the salad dressings are made from a vinaigrette base, including the Caesar. As a result, the salad works better as an amuse bouche -- a few, bright bites to clear the palate before the next course -- rather than a full course in itself.

We took a spontaneous day trip to Champaign, IL and tried Jupiter's on the recommendation of Dave…read morePortnoy's Pizza Review. It was delicious! We shared a Greek salad that was chock full of black olives and feta cheese. We also shared a large Chicken Fajita specialty pizza and it was so tasty! Lots of chicken and fajita vegetable hidden under the cheese. Our server Justin was attentive too. Ambiance is relaxed and it's a bar with six pool tables. We will come here again!

The vibe is very cute I like that their pizza is flat but it's so oily and salty it's very heavy…read moreand you get nauseous very easily

We often get a pizza at Padano's on Friday nights. It is always fresh and tasty. We get a large…read moresausage and mushroom pizza and it is a real treat

It's a shame when you try to support your local pizza restaurant but the owner is rude when you…read moretry to order then he hangs up on you. I decided to go into the pizza shop to ask him why he told me "I don't understand I can't make that" in an agitated tone and then hung up when all I asked was for a sausage pizza and cheese pizza. He looked startled that I questioned him in person and he stated that the phones weren't working (he always uses this as an excuse for being rude to customers over the phone). Even if your phones aren't working, then you need to tell me that instead of being rude and hanging up. We have lived in this town for a long time and the town has always talked about how the owner is very kind or very very rude to his customers. Padano's, we will never order from you again. I will always pay more for professional service with kindness. Monicals it is!

Nandos is one of my favorite places in Champaign. However, this visit was different than most--…read morethey have started doing a set menu with appetizer, entre, and dessert for about $65 per person. The one caveat is that menu items off of the set menu can not just be ordered. For exampl, you cannot just order the arancini balls anymore-- which is one of my faves. This was a smidge disappointing if you don't want to order from the set menu portion. The regular menu has some options but not all that they used to. The food was good per usual just this change up threw us off!

My daughter and I tried this restaurant for the first time this evening (on a Tuesday night around…read more6pm). We were greeted at the door by the host who opened the door and welcomed us inside. He quickly seated us and we were then greeted by one of the waitstaff who offered us tap water or sparkling water while we waited for our server. We ordered sparkling water and our server came right over and greeted us and took care of us throughout our dining experience. The ambiance of the restaurant is very pleasant, dark wood decor, lovely dining music playing. There were only a couple of other tables with customers so it was a pretty relaxed setting, but u can imagine this would be a lovely date night spot or group dinner venue. We enjoyed our dishes (pictures included) and unlike other Italian restaurants that often provide huge portions, these meals were appropriately portioned and filling. We also had the tiramisu for dessert; it was different than what we are accustomed too. Much more creamy and more like a pudding than a cake. Overall we enjoyed our experience and dinner!

Delicious walk-up counter NY pizza. I did the build-your-own with sausage, pepperoni, onion, and…read morered bell pepper. I liked the wide variety of topping choices! I liked that you could choose red vs green bell pepper, since I prefer red and it isn't usually an option. The toppings seemed quite fresh, the crust was soft like typical NY pizza. Even with these positives though, I felt it was expensive for what it was. I don't think a large, even with this number of toppings, should be over $30. Regardless, I probably will return! Good pizza!

The best pizza at its price point in CU, and it is not even close (since Antonio's closed years…read moreago). I have never liked their empanadas, but who cares; it is a pizza joint, and I am reviewing their pizza. Having tried an embarrassing number of their pizzas in the last ten years, the only skippable pizza is the curried chicken, which is bland and tastes more like "yellow" than anything related to India. Every single specialty pizza besides this one is worth the splurge. The spotted goat, of course, is transcendent, but do not sleep on their premium toppings like balsamic chicken. The BBQ meats pizza will cure your hangover, and some of the veggie options like the sweet balsamic modena veg are fantastic, especially considering how few decent veg places we have in town. I don't even want to consider how much money I have spent here. Is it top-tier NY/NJ quality, no, is it five stars as in "the best pizza I have ever had," not even close, and in NJ this would be just ok... but we are in CU. By CU standards, this is five-star pizza, and I would literally cry if they closed. Even by Chicago standards, this is good pizza. If Papa Del's sauce is too sweet for you, if Patricio's and Vinny's basic toppings get boring, and if Rosati's thin crust seems bland, you might appreciate the NY style tangy crust and creativity at Manolos. High quality ingredients and tasty pizza.

This was, without a doubt, the worst deep dish pizza I have ever eaten. The cheese was flavorless,…read morecheap, and far too packed to where each bite was nothing but cheese with the tiniest hint of crust and sauce (and I ordered extra sauce). The crust was stiff and lacked any sort of taste. The sauce was the only part that I would consider to be average. I'm very confident that there are multiple grocery store frozen deep dish pizzas that are far superior to what I ate at this place. It feels disrespectful to include this on a menu and charge $28 for such a disastrous glob of tasteless garbage.

The $6 dollar slice and canned drink has saved me as a college student. Also very lowkey place to…read morestudy if you want something nice and quiet.

This is pizza with the potential to be good but just isn't…read more I picked up a couple pan slices -- plain cheese. The sauce was good and has a "classic" flavor but there wasn't enough of it. It was like a light seasoning that gave the otherwise flavorless pizza what taste it had. The dough itself was dry. A little more salt and a drizzle of olive oil would go a long way. The space is well-laid out with plenty of seating but it was eerily empty. On a weekday dinner time -- when the pizzeria a block over was full -- Garcia's was dead. Do they just not try to get customers?

Living in the past - 1 of 2…read more Come on, we all live in the past to some degree, with some doing so more so than others. That said, this college town is a part of my past and something that was surreal to me most of the time I was there. However, with school and stress, you look for ways to mitigate the negativity - food, friends, and funny jokes, mostly of the inside and irreverent variety. As for the food, Garcia's was one of the eateries that handled that part of the equation for me. Garcia's Pizza used to be on Green Street in Campustown and I recall eating lunch there a fair bit. After not setting foot in the 61820 for at least two decades, I thought I could handle it. I did handle it, albeit with a short visit that revealed a lot of change. Newer mid-rises, which seem to be popular with foreign (graduate) students, now stand in Campustown and moved Garcia's out to the west side where the town gives way to shopping centers, (then) newer apartment complexes, and cornfields. Garcia's used to be in this woodsy and glassy hippie-dippy stand-alone locale on Green Street and, inside, it paid homage to another era with its mezzanines and, if I recall correctly, a fireplace. Now, it's in a stout building in a large outdoor shopping center. The reason I'd go to Garcia's was for their stuffed pizza and, on occasion, for their "Gutbuster" pizza. Not once did I order a conventional crust pizza because I had made the acquaintance of the stuffed pizza and the "Gutbuster" and I liked them. I believe I would get my slice in tandem with a small salad and a soft drink. Either of these slices of pizza filled you up, and, depending on which way the wind from the South Farms was blowing, might push you to want to take a snooze, which was dependent on whether or not you had a class. I was going to flex with the situation, find their new location, and woof down some Garcia's pizza. The menu had the "baby stuffed pizza" for one for a nice enough price and I also had a small salad and a soft drink. The stuffed pizza was fine except that it didn't have the rich and moist taste I once recall. The tomato sauce and the herbs seemed to compete with the taste of the ingredients I prefer. It was a good, and definitely filling, but not quite what I remember that would pull me back in for lunch at least once a week. The current store is spacious, they've kept the the menu items and the overall theme, the interaction with the employees was forgettable, which usually means it was fine, and I was able to look at paraphernalia that was present back in the day. I'm talking about their trademark hot air balloon with their fonts and slogans. Additionally, there is at least one outdoor seating area to one side of the store. This experience was very different from the Campustown experience, but I was glad to still find Garcia's and walk down "Memory Lane" ... in addition to feasting on some stuffed pizza.