Monical's Pizza at Traders Point

Do you ever just want to go out to dinner on Sunday? For some reason, this became the bane of FLO's existence yesterday. After traveling to 7 different restaurants, searching for something new to experience and being disappointed by "closed for special event" or no Sunday hours, FLO finally stumbled upon Monical's Pizza. Never having heard of it, this sounded like a perfect spot to settle in and fill our belly's.

Located at Traders Point shopping center off of 86th street, it actually has a bit of contemporary homeyness to it. As soon as you walk in, you know it is a chain from somewhere. Far too polished and "designed" to be a mom and pop. After perusing through the menu, we saw it was out of Illinois and had been around since 1959. There are four locations on the north side yet it somehow eluded our radar until now.

Being elated to finally find some place open that was new to us, pizza sounded perfect! Ozzy luckily had a few pasta choices and went with the kid's spaghetti with marinara and breadstick. Fred and Libby each decided to go with their "Individual Pleaser." This came with an 8 inch personal pizza, a salad, and drink. Fred decided thin with steak and hot pepperoncini and Libby the pan with ground beef and green olive.

Although there were some service issues, the general feel of the place made it easy to settle in and being surrounded by some good looking pies didn't hurt. The salads were no frills: lettuce, carrot, tomato, cheese and they brought out a whole squeeze bottle of the dressing of your choice.

Ozzy's pasta, which arrived first, really wasn't up to his high expectations. He gave it a shot, tried to drown it in parmesan, but alas, it was just the breadstick for the boy...and he really dug it! Fred's pizza came first and was light on the steak, heavy on spicy pepperoncini, but the overall effect was two thumbs up. The thin crust was perhaps the thinnest we have ever had, but held up well and still maintained a good flavor. The steak, although sparse, was well seasoned, and made us curious about that Italian Beef we had seen on the menu...maybe next time?! Libby's finally arrived and had the same interesting affliction...again, light on the well seasoned ground beef, and a little too heavy on the green olive. A good pan crust, not too greasy and a little doughy. Happy tum-tums.

A nice surprise for those in the neighborhood...they deliver! This would certainly be a step above any delivery place on our side of town.

http://www.monicalspizza.com/

Wrap Up

Price-$, Very reasonable...our total was under $20.

Atmosphere-***Clean, easy, comfortable. Design felt private even though it wasn't. Very kid friendly.

Service-**, Not a good day for our server, but he was taking it in stride and good to communicate with us about it.

Overall

Fred -B+, The price really boosts this rating from a B- to a B+.
Libby -B, Pretty happy with the quality and overall flavor...definitely would come back for more.

Ozzy -B-, Pasta, a big no, but they definitely seem to know their breads.