Humboldt Pie Pizza

Arrggghhhh closed!!!
I used to go here all the time on my lunch break when I worked in Humboldt Park. Sandwiches were excellent and it was just a peaceful, laid back, comfortable place to escape when it was 95 degrees outside.
If you reopen somewhere in the future, I will be back and bring more friends this time. Please come back HP, you are missed!

Why?! Why did you leave me Humboldt Pie?
You were a beacon on a bleak stretch of California. You had awesomely great pizza in a neighborhood devoid of it. I liked your coffee, wifi, and delicious sandwiches and salads too.
Where else am I supposed to get Margherita pizza just how I like it? And awesome Caprese sandwiches on herb bollo squares? NOWHERE!
I’m going through withdrawal. This feels like a break up.

Humboldt pie is closed… It closed a few weeks ago.

The true test of any pizza place is the cheese pizza. You can disguise a crappy pizza in pepperonis and onions and whatever else until you can’t taste it anymore. After eating the cheese pizza at Humboldt Pie, in the infamous words of Ralphie’s teacher, I say A + + + + + + +!
The sauce is really good and herby. You can taste a lot of basil, which I like. I could see how it could put people off though. It was plenty saucy too.
The crust is delish! Cracker-​y and crisp. In a city that seems to pride itself on the deep dish, it’s nice to find a place that makes the thin kind, and makes it right.
The pizza is just cheesy enough, and not greasy at all. It’s a little pricey, but from my experience in this city, everything seems to be.
Nice to see that they offer pizza by the slice, and have some tasty looking brownies I think I might go back to try. The atmosphere is kind of coffee shoppish, and they have free wifi, so it seems like it might be kind a nice little place to hang out in too.

Interesting. Cheap. Not too greasy.
Once inside, I would more expect to see this place in Wicker Park, not Humboldt Park– if you know what I mean. White people with tattoo’s and modern art on the walls. Spacious with a couch.
I assume that since it isn’t in Wicker Park, we are blessed with super cheap prices.
I had a cheese pizza ($ 8ish) and BBQ stromboli with a mixed green salad ($ 4.50). The pizza was like the $ 2 yellow box frozen pizza only less greasy. It was ok. The stromboli was made with the same bread, which is ok. What I LOVED was the huge meaty chunks of chicken breast. YUM! All of the ingredients, including the salad greens, were super-​duper fresh.
I felt wholesome when I left, even though I had just gorged on cheese and dough.

I’m still digesting the stromboli I ate there as I write this. I have tried a few of their salads (all good), a few of their pizzas (pretty good), and now the stromboli (super), and I feel qualified to give them an enthusiastic recommendation. The guy who just waited on us was probably one of the nicest people ever.
I’m sure this has to do with foot traffic, but I would give this place five stars if you could walk in and order just a slice of pizza. Other than that, I say yum!

Try everything. The sandwiches and salads are made quick and fresh. You can create your own which I would recommend. The pizza is flavorful, thin crust, and easy to eat in small slices. A large is enough for 3 – 4 (not obnoxiously over-​indulgent) people.
Free wifi without a network password! You can chill for a couple hours without being part of a cool kid scene and eat a delicious lunch/​dinner for under $ 6. It stays open til 10pm.
Plus it’s BYOB… and yet somehow there are not demented drunk-​ass hipsters everywhere. The staff will happily uncork your bottle of booze for no cost or in my case, point out that it’s a twist off.

Searching for great thin crust pizza was becoming a bit of an obsession with me. «Was» being the operative word because I think my search is over. Humboldt Pie has a thin, crispy crust that has great flavor — unlike most pizza places around. The toppings are fresh and plentiful and it makes the most delicious breakfast the next day.
4 stars because the sauce was REALLY unevenly distributed around the pie. Some pieces were on the dry side, some were swimming in sauce. But they were all delicious just the same.

I love Humboldt Pie because they aren’t trying to be anything more than what they are. They are a chill coffee/​pizza place with an eclectic feel to the people and the environment.
The food, coffee, music, and atmosphere are all perfect for sitting down with a friend and having a chat whenever there’s free time in your schedules. They offer free Wi-​Fi and will warn you ahead of time if it’s being a bit wacky.
Also, make sure to check out the artwork on the walls. I have to say my favorite would have to be the one where the woman is having a chest xray and where her heart should be there’s a grenade in its place. I have a soft spot in my heart for that one, or should I say grenade (o:

Given that I’ve practically moved into Humboldt Pie as of late, a review is long overdue.
Free, fast wireless. Yummy sandwiches and strombolis. Intelligentsia coffee. Fresh iced tea. Plenty of seating. And a staff that doesn’t mind when I plop down with my books and study for 8 hours straight. Rock on.
Minus one star for Maria, the cranky lady. I realize she’s been working there for ages. But not one other employee has ever charged me for a refill on iced tea. And she always does. Grrrr.

This place is clean and within walking distance, so bonus. Free wi-​fi also makes for a good place to just chill, and at least the time that I was in there, it didn’t seem too crowded at all. The vibe is laid back and I really got the impression that if you wanted to spend four hours working on a paper or a blog, they wouldn’t give a flip.
I had a sausage and cheese stromboli for lunch, which was excellent once it finally got to me. For some reason it took like 25 minutes to bake the thing. Now, I don’t know a lot about baking pizza, but I know that I used to get calzones that were three times the size of this stromboli at my favorite pizza joint in Nashville and it never took that long. Also, the woman at the counter acted very put out that I wanted to order something that wasn’t pre-​made, going so far as to try and talk me out of ordering the sausage since they already had a pepperoni stromboli sitting under the heat lamp.
I’m sorry, but I don’t think it’s that out of the question to: A. Want something with a version of the pig I actually enjoy and B. Want something that hasn’t been sitting out for an hour or two.
So on that note, I must speak to the service. I noticed before I went here that a lot of the reviews mentioned how great the service was. I didn’t find it to be that at all. Actually, at a time in the afternoon when the place wasn’t even that busy, the woman waiting on us actually seemed put out by having to do her job. Which, of course, consisted of nothing but ringing us up and pulling two drinks out of the cooler. The drink thing she had to be reminded of twice before she actually did it.
I know that it’s not always the fault of a place if a worker is slacking off. You can’t be everywhere at once, and regardless of what you do, some people aren’t willing to be anything but lazy. But that lack of respect reflects negatively on the business, which is unfortunate, because this is an otherwise nice neighborhood lunch and coffee location.
I’ll go back, and hopefully on my return visit things will be different.

We went there at about 7:15 on a Saturday night… which was not apparently the swingin time for this place. There was one other guy in there, sipping a latte and taking advantage of the free wi-​fi.
So we ordered our pizza at the register… the ticket has a tip line on it? I was perplexed because, while they do the same thing at the counter at, say, Cosi, I feel confident to draw a line through it, as there is no additional service required; order at one end of the line, pick it up and pay at the other end. But at Humboldt Pie, we ordered a pizza and we had to pay first, so it was kind of confusing. Do I trust them to provide great service and just write in the tip, or… what do I do here? I queried the guy behind the counter and he told me I could just draw a line thru it, so I did. Later, I felt guilty and pre-​bussed our table as best I could.
Pizza is fine, but a little greasy — the cheese didn’t stay on the crust/​sauce, and it was SO HOT (indeed, half of the crust was nearly black) that I was imagining horrible burns on my chin before I even picked up a slice. So that’s fork-​and-​knife pizza for me.
It looks like it’d be a great place to have a coffee and work wirelessly, or do something… anything…alone. There was no music, nothing to really mute or muffle any conversation, so we just read the Reader. Would have liked to have had some conversation without everyone there hearing every word.
It was fine. Will probably come back on a Sunday afternoon, laptop in tow.

Admittedly, I do have a connection to HP — and thought it should be known that the bagels come directly from «Gonnella» — a Chicago Bakery Co. which has been a part of this city for generations. As for a drink that isn’t satisfactory, I would recommend letting the staff know at the time and they would surely have made another. As most of the reviews have already stated, the staff is VERY accomodating.
The pizza at Humboldt Pie is thin crust — and pizza taste is very subjective — but they do offer the «double dough» option for those who prefer a thicker crust.

I’m devoted to Phil’s Pizza on the south side… but since I now live a block away from Humboldt pie, and no longer live near Phil’s :(, I had to try to find a new pizza place…
Service was great, but I wouldn’t say the pizza was. The first time I got a pizza to go, I got home and found the sauce to be kinda runny and the toppings were sliding around! We were starved, so we managed to enjoy it anyways… haha
Never tried anything else, but I’ll definitely try going back for other stuff. I was originally going to rate it 3 stars, but since they have free Wi-​fi and manage to serve up a decent cup of coffee, they get 4 :)

I’ve never had the pizza at Humboldt Pie.
I’ve had other food there (like the Humboldt Salad) and it’s really good although maybe slightly overpriced. The coffee is great (although I don’t know about one-​dollar bottomless cup?).
The atmosphere is nice and relaxed, I love the music they play, and it’s hard to beat free wireless! They have some nice couches to sit on, good for doing work.
Once an apparently homeless man came in and the guy that worked there was wondering where the homeless man had been, he hadn’t seen him in a long time, he gave him all this stuff he needed, and he let him use the phone. Then I think the phone didn’t work so he let him use his own cell phone. It made me like the place even more. Anyway, everyone who works there is very nice, friendly, accomodating, and sincere.

This place was cool, close by but I just couldn’t get into the pizza. Sure, the décor is nice and the staff is really friendly but I the crust was too damned thin. Not a very impressive pizza. The crust was brittle and had the consistency of tortilla chips.
The art on the wall was really cool and I liked the selection of deserts and drinks and the name is creative but this is a review of the food and it just doesn’t cut it.

Yummy delicious pizza.
I called ahead and ordered but I accidentally ordered the wrong kind of pizza – Margherita – but was very very happy. I don’t normally like meatless pizzas but this was delish. The olive oil on it was so yummy and oooh I can’t stop thinking about it.
No sign of Moustache Guy, but the guy helping me offered me coffee or other drinks while I waited for my pizza…
The place is actually more coffeehouse-​esque than pizzaesque… They have free wi-​fi, and people were hanging out talking about eating cicadas.
I’ve since gone again and had the spicy Italian sandwich, which was served on a roll similar to a pretzel roll, very delicious stuff!

Humboldt Pie has yummy yummy pizza for a very reasonable price. A friend in town on business wanted to hook up for dinner, had a pizza craving, and wanted to escape downtown where she’d been trapped for three days. We immediately rushed to her hotel, bundled her into the car and swept her to Humboldt Pie. You could see the tension of downtown nastiness melt off her face. She took a bite of pizza and sighed contentedly. Her wallet finally stopped screaming.
Humboldt Pie has friendly service, delicious food and a laid-​back atmosphere. They also carry amazing cake from Tipsy Cake. Yum. Plus, they now deliver!

If you live in the neighborhood, I highly suggest you support this local business. The interior is great, with tin ceilings, ample tables and a spacious feel. The food was great, the coffee even better. OK, so the lady with the apron is not the friendliest person. But when we were there on a Sunday morning, there was only one other person there. She was probably worried if she would have a job in the future.
This is exactly the type of local business folks in the neighborhood should support. Unfortunately, it does not seem as though they are. It would be a shame if someone that has spent a good deal of money trying to upgrade the area, that is trying to succeed in a neighborhood of abandoned storefronts, does not succeed. Do you really want to see it close, only to have a Starbucks pop up there in a year or two?

I’m loving Humboldt Pie. It’s within walking distance from where I live and has more than just your typical coffee fare — you can get a pizza from the pizzeria in the back if you like!
I walked in and the guy behind the counter was all «hey what’s up, what are you up to tonight?» like we’ve been friends forever. The service is great, the food is good (had a stromboli and chopped salad), it’s really reasonable for café fare, and it’s just a cute spot. Oh plus they have San Pellegrinos (yay!) Iguana I love you but you have a little bit of competition now (but you know nothing beats those crepes…)
I’ll definitely be a regular at Humboldt Pie…