Pizzeria Uno

You must understand that before Nick met Natalie that he knew very little about Chicago - just Bull's Basketball, the Magnificient Mile, and Deep Dish Pizza.  And of course the deep dish pizza that he had heard of was Pizzeria UNO's (mostly because it had become a nationwide franchise). He now knows there are many more deep dish pizza places and all of them claim to be the best.  But ever since we moved to Chicago, Nick has wanted to go to the original (flagship) location of Pizzeria Uno - even though there are a couple of suburban Chicago locations.

From this view you can see 80% of the restaurant 

We were warned when we tried to call ahead that it can be a long wait. They do not take reservations and instead once you arrive at the restaurant you can order your deep dish pizza with the hostess when you put your name on the wait list so that you have less of a wait for food once you get seated. We went to dinner at Uno's on a busy (but not too busy) Monday Night.  It was super warm spring weather so the wait was enjoyable. It was also torture as Uno had opened up its patio seating and the delicious smells of pizza were wafting our way and making our mouths water.

There isn't alot of space to wait in and it apears that this particular UNO location can't handle very large groups. (However, there is a Pizzeria Due that is located just a block away that looks like it is a bigger space.)  As a matter of fact with them opening up the patio seating it appears that they gained 30% more seating. We placed our deep dish pizza order with the hostess and were seated within 15 min - because it was just the two of us we jumped ahead of some groups of 3 and 4.

 Pizzeria Due just down the street

Nick decided that he couldn't wait until the pizza came and ordered a salad, and waited patiently, and waited and waited. Then we saw a table close to us that had been seated after us get their appetizers and salads. I guess the waiter forgot, which is weird because this is the only order he actually took from us - remember we placed the pizza order with the hostess, not him.  So by this time Nick was extremely hungry - so when the pizza did arrive we started eating before taking the blog photos (but we do have pictures of the already partially consumed pizza pie). We orderd a Numero Uno deep dish pizza, which included cheese, sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, green peppers and onions.  It was good, but considering the weird service we can go elsewhere for deep dish that is just as good.  There are at least 3 other deep dish pizza establishments within 10 minutes of where we live.

 Numero Uno deep dish 

Final thoughts on Pizzeria Uno:
Food - Good, traditional Chicago style deep dish pizza.  If you are in the River North/Magnificient Mile section of Chicago it is a good option.  But other places you could consider would be Ginos' East, Lou Malnati's, Bacino's, and many others.
Service - Well this was a downer for us. I guess forgetting the salad made our bill lower, but it was very disappointing.  Considering Nick had waited so long to go to this specific location it was a let down. 
Atmosphere - the interior of the restaurant was much smaller than we had anticipated. We were kind of put in a tight corner, but that was fine with just the 2 of us.  For a larger space (and maybe less of a wait) you could try the affiliated Pizzeria Due just down the street.  It was great that it was a nice weather night to be able to wait outside on the sidewalk.  If it were cold, it would be really tight quarters trying to wait inside their entry area.