At the Gates: Cici's Pizza

For those unfamiliar, Cici’s is a VPN-certified, hyper-authentic Neapolitan pizza retreat that makes or grows all of its own ingredients, offers only a base margherita pie, and bakes all of its pies in wood-burning oven shipped over from Naples and built by Italian masons.

Oh, and during Restaurant Week, they are offering a $3.99 buffet, including salad, pasta, and dessert.

You’ve seen the commercials; you’re morbidly curious, I’m sure; so was I. She’s a clever one, my girlfriend: she called me a food snob, backed me into a corner, left me no recourse. We had to go.

Surprise: it’s really gross. Like sub-Little Ceasar’s bad: the tomato sauce on the pizza is acrid, Ralph Wiggum approved (e.g., “it tastes like burning”); the toppings actually have the word ‘topping’ in their designation—i.e., “meat topping,” “bacon topping,” etc. Specialty pizzas, and there are plenty, enter into the “uncanny valley” of Food Inc.: they taste nothing like pizza and everything like shelf-stable buffalo or barbecue sauce (to name two pizza types), the proverbial thing in itself; the buffet supervisor guy is not kidding when he said, “two all beef patties, special sauce...” to introduce the cheeseburger pizza (lettuce included!), because it tasted exactly like a Big Mac. (Three cheers for food science, yeah!) Were I to invite anyone from history to dinner, it would be Kant and Hegel. And we would go here.

I was able to ingest the white pizzas, which were just some bad Provel-like substance and bread and thankfully there were usually at least three variants on the buffet line at any one time; the “flips”—essentially a sad slice of pepperoni folded between two crusts—are sort of a guilty pleasure. The composed salad is sort of a bottom-end version of Olive Garden’s salad, thankfully light on the sugary dressing; you can add vegetable toppings to it, and they were surprisingly fresh. And the cinnamon rolls are not all that bad.

But still. Please, please, please go to Shabu House (same strip mall, even!) or Cho Jung instead.

Cici's Pizza
8225 W Golf
Niles, IL 60714
(847) 965-3911
http://www.cicisofniles.com

I would never have thought that a national chain buffet with heat lamp pizza would be sub-par. Oh well, straight back to di fara's for me!

I remember eating at a Cici's in Atlanta when I was in college... not only was the pizza disgusting, but so were most of the clientele. Lowest common denominator doesn't even begin to describe them.

What? No pictures?

Seriously, there are reasons I consider myself a food snob. And this is the best reason of them all.

chezbrad wrote: the cinnamon rolls are not all that bad.

Only thing that I liked.

Yup, this was the worst of all the meals we had while in Orlando; its only saving grace was that it was cheap...and, well, we didn't overeat the way one often does at an even mildly unpleasant buffet - because it was just so horrible.

Our own LAZ took one for the team, with photos, and posted it here.

blipsman wrote:I remember eating at a Cici's in Atlanta when I was in college... not only was the pizza disgusting, but so were most of the clientele. Lowest common denominator doesn't even begin to describe them.

Be careful what you say there Blips. Some really regular folk get duped into going there with their kids.

I LOVE CICI'S PIZZA. I have ben to Cici's pizza in Niles 3 times, and think the buffet is awesome. The specialty pizza are great, where else can you go and try 18 different kinds of pizza. My favorite's are the Buffalo Chicken and the Mac and Cheese. The salad bar alone is worth the $4.99. the Italian salad mix is great, tastes similar to the Olive Garden Signature salad, but at Cici's its all part of the great buffet. I recommend Cici's Pizza to everyone, if you want to take your family out for an affordable dinner at a place with great fun atmosphere Cici"s of Niles is the place.

I used to go to Cici's with coworkers a few times a month while living in Tampa, FL, not because I enjoyed the taste, but because it was a lot of food (and I use the word "food" in the most literal, clinical sense) for very little money ($2.99 back then), meaning more funds could be earmarked for booze.

I haven't been back to Cici's in over a decade, but I still remember the various permutations of "pizza" being utterly devoid of flavor. It was very, very obvious that everything, sauce, toppings, cheese, hell, probably even the dough, came out of large food-service-style cans.

Well, the awfulness sure ain't a regional thing. I went to one for the first time here in central Kentucky, and it was as bad as described above. What it's good for is if you just want to be a pizza glutton and not spend much to do it. It's an okay time if you go armed with your sense of humor. And, yes, if you have a bunch of kids and want to throw a pizza party, the one down here had a video game room and plenty of space for them to run about crazily burning off all the pizza they'd just inhaled. If you do find yourself there reluctantly, based on my sole experience, I would recommend only getting pizzas with a white sauce; there was one or two like that I thought okay. The margherita and buffalo chicken pizzas aren't edible. There's a time and a place for a decent garbarge iceberg lettuce salad with all the toppings you normally wouldn't put on a salad, and Cici's is both that time and place.

I think it's one of those places my wife needs to go to twice a year, sort of like our semi-annual Big Mac craving, so next time I'm there, I'll take some pictures.

I don't know what the Cici's in Niles is like, but the one down here is a real sterile looking environment, not exactly kid-directed. It's a weird place.

I think we were just moving out of Jefferson Park when that Niles Cici's was opening up. My wife, who has nostalgic yearnings for Cici's was very excited and asked me to call up and find out their hours. I talked to the owner/franchisee, who told me he was (back then) a month from opening, but he was extremely friendly and helpful about giving me an estimate on the opening day, what the place would be like, and emailed me some coupons as a way of saying sorry that he wasn't open yet. I thought that was very cool, and the impression of exemplary customer service I received deserves to get mentioned.

This post title could not be more true. I ate here once, and never, ever, ever again. To say that what they offer even resembles food product is a joke. It is a wonder to me that they can offer a $3.99 (limited time special, usually $4.99) buffet and not have to shut their doors. The only explanation is that it's not real food.

It reminds me of that Spongebob Squarepants episode where the Krusty Krab becomes Krabby O'Mondays. Man, I love that one. Points if you know what I'm talking about!

There was a Cici's that opened in Des Plaines at the corner of Golf and Elmhurst Road a few years back. It closed before I could try it. Sounds like that was a blessing in disguise based on this thread. I doubt it lasted 2 years.