Leona’s Pizza & Italian Restaurant

When I went down W. Augusta Blvd. I somehow noticed that Leona’s had been shut down. And actually shut down by the Cook County Sheriff… Their business had terribly depreciated anyway…

Notice: This location has just closed down. There was a note on the door a few weeks ago thanking customers for their patronage. The whole place is empty inside.

There should be a NO start option!!! The food is great but the service is HORRIBLE!!! Specially the waiter Steve!
So my husband and I go there, We decided to order some wings and have a few beers while we waited as soon as we walked in this guys ask what do you want?! We were like what! Seriously so I go nicely to him we would like to order to go and he goes OKAY (with the biggest attitude) so my husband asked him if we could sit on the bar while we waited so he goes YEAH! We sit and he just dropped the menu to us, not handle! At that point we were already pretty pissed off but we had a long day at work so we decided just to drink our beer and wait for our food with out any problem. So the waiter brings the food w/​check rudely! So my husband decided to have another beer when he asked the guy to give another beer he goes to him OH MY GOD I’m gonna have to bring another check! He takes the empty bottle from table throw it w/​empty ones that the bottle even broke! What an attitude of this guy! He is the WORST waiter ever!!! And just because of that waiter WILL NEVER GO BACK TO THAT PLACE! He honestly should be fired, he shouldn’t be working on a place where u have to deal with customers all the time.

I have to say I am surprised by all the negative reviews! Last month I ordered delivery and recently I ate in the restaurant. both times I was completely satisfied.
As a huge pizza fan — I know prices. and Leona’s prices are slightly lower than Giordano’s and the other competitors. Their bruschetta is AMAZING. better than anywhere else I’ve tried in the city. Their all meat pizza is also really, really good. and the cheesy garlic bread is obviously a yummy guilty pleasure.
Delivery was relatively fast — less than an hour on a busy holiday weekend. The food was still hot and fresh when it arrived and we got a discount for ordering online.
The restaurant was clean, staff was cheerful and attentive. I have zero complaints.

Ew. I should have known better than to trust the reviews on Grubhub. I ordered a pizza with cheese, pepperoni, and pineapple. I kid you not, this was the cheapest tasting pizza I have yet to encounter. I mean… despite being starving after a long day of traveling, it wasn’t even edible. Everything from the cheese to the crust was poor quality. It’s pretty hard to fuck up a pizza but Leonas managed to succeed in doing so.
I tossed the pizza and grabbed a banana from the hotel lobby. Now that I’ve had a chance to read other Unilocal reviews on this spot, looks like I’m not the only one giving this pizza joint a serious thumbs down.

I hosted an event in one of of their party rooms. The service was great but the food was horrible. I called the manager twice to complain about the food and never heard back. Will not be returning. Don’t waste your money.

Yeah, um, yeah.
I’ll just keep it short and sweet. Don’t have them deliver, it’s unimpressive and the prices were high.

My husband and I used to love Leona’s. And the we ordered pizza one night at 7:40 and waited two hours I finally called grub hub to see what was going on since our pizza was 45 minuets late at this point. They called Leona’s who told them it was delivered at 7:45… We confirmed we didn’t have it and they said we should have a new one by no later than 10:30. I called Leona’s directly at 10:40 (three hours after the order was placed) the manager said it hasn’t even left yet and would be at least 20 more minuets. So we canceled the order and will never come back, which sucks because we used to eat there at least once a month.

The thin crust pizza was atrocious. I also found hair in between one of the layers of cheese. Last time I order from there.

Very disappointing to see that we had a group of 15 and it was only 850 and the door said they close at 11 and the waitress would not serve us said they were closing in 15 minutes … Not only did she not want to serve us but said they just changed the hours so If that is the case they should change their hours online and on the door… It is sad to see a business turn such a big party away. I will never again give my business to this company

So the second time I ordered from here, the delivery took almost an hour and a half. Too make matters worse, when I opened the box, the pizza was cold and had clearly been dropped. I mean the cheese was half off the pizza, sauce covered the box, and the pieces were bent from being stored in a non-​upright position.
So I give the place a call and demand a refund, and the first person I talked to acted to be incompetent so I asked to speak with the manager. She initially tried to give me a $ 10 discount on my next order and I demanded that they refund the entire price I paid (they ruined dinner for me and my friends while we were watching the Hawks game, the game was over by the time we got the already ruined ‘za). The manager eventually ‘succumbed’ to my demand and said that they would give me a full discount.
The manager *LIED* to me and said that on my next order I would the full value back as a discount. Sure enough, she gave me that initial $ 10 discount that she wanted.
Terrible business practices get terrible reviews.
If Leona’s wants make up for their terrible service, they can reach me at my spam email account
DO NOT SUPPORT A BAD BUSINESS LIKE LEONAS

If I could give no stars, I would.
Flavorless food. Used to be my fave place.
Never again.
What a dump!!!

Cute restaurant, quick service, portion size was adequate, very friendly staff. Prices weren’t bad either.

Lost Trust! Ok so I actually use to work at Leonas. and although I never loved the management. I did love the food… Enough so, that 15 years later I have continued to go back regularly. The business is no longer family owned and so I knew they had made changes but I was almost excited to see what they had done with the place. I went to order all the usual last night just to find that they striped down the menu significantly. I figured well. if its under new management, I guess that makes sense, their menu was extensive. But nothing, and I mean NOTHING could have prepared me for what happened next.
I ordered the Tuscan chicken sandwich which was still on the menu. This use to be a delicious sandwich made with juicy free range chicken last I recall. I bit into it, and I couldn’t break it apart with my teeth… I figured I hit a tendon which kinda grossed me out. Second bite, same thing. I opened the sandwich to find a discussing patty thing that looks like it was pressed together with plastic. Without prompting, I asked my husband to try it and tell me what he thought. He took a bite and asked me if this was a joke. we tried breaking it apart with our fingers to find this could not be done.
I called them and they said they «changed the chicken patty»… well before it was never a patty, it was real chicken for one thing. They had also forgot my Nieces Fries, Bacon on my husbands Bacon burger and onion. They told me I could walk it back to get a refund for just the sandwich. I walked back not for the $ 10, but under principal.
In all my years of ordering out, I have never been so discussed. I am so disappointed in what they have done. The owners should be ashamed of them selves. This was a long standing Chicago restaurant that now serves crap for the same price. Although I personally will never step foot in there again. They will slowly loose the trust of the entire Chicago base if they don’t turn things around.
Vicki

Leona’s has a bad rap that precedes it, and I wish I could say after eating there that I could say it was trash and don’t believe what you hear.
Believe what you hear. Leona’s is not good.
Sure, this particular building is really neat, being built around another building (the party room is the 100+ year old existing space) but that’s about where «neat» or «cool» ends.
A friend of mine worked REALLY hard to put together a casual bridal shower for another friend of ours, really really hard. Leona’s worked with her, no room fee, no deposit, etc. I’m thinking that’s because maybe they just needed the business?
The server they had for us (we only needed one, there were only about 10 – 13 of us) was serving her first party, and it was obvious. We had to ask for drinks. We had to ask for music. We had to ask for plates, silverware, napkins, and serving utensils.
On top of it all, the food was not good, with the exception of the chicken cannelloni bites appetizer. That was okay. The Caesar salad dressing was pretty gross, and the pizza was just flat out bad. The crust and sauce had no flavor, and the toppings left much to be desired. I’m talking they don’t even bother using fresh mushrooms.
We had a few people with dietary restrictions which prevented them from eating the pizza (a severe egg allergy and a gluten intolerance.) Special meals were ordered, but not properly delivered. The person with the egg allergy was given a salad with pasta in it. Had to have a new one made. The person with the gluten intolerance was given naked chicken tenders and potato wedges, she thinks the potato wedges were coated with something that may have contained flour.
I would not recommend Leona’s to anyone looking for a meal or to host a party.

Terrible service. Beer was OK. Tried to wave down the waiter for a good ten minutes to get our tab while he texted on his phone. Also he glared at me on the way to the bathroom.
How. Rude.

Belligerent manager. Lazy staff. Awful food.
That just about sums up this place.
Came here with a group of ten. We waited 15 minutes for our server to come to our table. We then asked her about some of the specials that were advertised in the front lobby. She said she had no idea and would find out. She never found out. We also asked her to put the basketball game on one of the 9 TVs in front of us. She never took care of that either. She obviously cares about her job.
We didn’t get any water for a half hour so we actually tried to serve ourselves. The only problem was that there wasn’t any water in the soda fountain that anyone had access to.
I ended up walking around to the front area to find the staff just lounging around and talking amongst themselves. We then noticed that the bartender is also the busboy. So that’s why our drink orders came out late. He had too much on his plate while the servers do next to nothing. The place wasn’t even that busy on a Friday nite.
The food came out even later — probably an hour and a half after we first sat down. My friend asked to speak to the manager. The manager said we had only been here for 20 minutes and told us to stop complaining. She then told us to stop screaming or she was gonna call the cops. We said we aren’t screaming, but that we just don’t think it’s right that we had to get our own waters and wait so long for food. This manager was unnecessarily rude and making things up to make us look bad.
The manager then told us to leave, and she would comp our bill. We said we were staying to eat since it was at our table now. The food was bad, but we were all hungry and didn’t want to find food somewhere else.
Somehow a new bartender showed up after seeing what was happening. The new bartender said she would personally take care of our drink orders. She was very sweet. We generously tipped her. I just hope she finds a new job because this place is going under sooner rather than later.
As we were leaving, the manager stared at us and gave us dirty looks. She needs to grow up.
So while we didn’t have to pay for our table orders, that didn’t matter to us. The problem was that this was one of the worst dining experiences any of us has ever had. Thankfully we all laugh about it now. But please don’t make the same mistake we did by coming here.

If your kids really want to come here because there’s a bouncy house — don’t. It’s not here anymore.
On second thought, if you are willing to be miserable with grumpy kids for an hour and a half (because the service is that slow.) you will never have to hear about going to Leona’s again.
P. S. — Kids meals are no longer free with adult entrée.

Do yourself a favor and go somewhere else.
They have changed the menu, will not be going back and from my point of view this restaurant chain must be on its last legs…

Was driving by the flagship Leona’s the other day – and it was gone, now a play on word’s and called «Lina’s» not the same anymore. My wife and I thought, «my we haven’t been to Leona’s in a very long time» and decided to try it again.
The Leona’s on Elston or Augusta would be the two for us to choose from. They both had mostly negative“Yelp” reviews, and I suppose the only reason I’m writing in today, is because it really wasn’t bad at all.
We went to the Augusta location, when years ago, the last time we went, we had to wait for a table, this time, there were only 4 tables at 7:30 on a Saturday night including ours being served .that being said, it took a very long time to be waited on by our waiter who wasn’t really on his game, but he did try hard once he started with us.
My wife had the veggie burger, which is how she rolls, and said it was what she expected, me, had a pasta with penne noodles with meat sauce and pot roast! Not the best thing I ever had, but good enough for supper. No complaints~!
So, it was good enough, the menu has changed many times over the years, and it really seems like they are trying… we did see a car heading out of the alley on our way in… I could tell it was a guy about to make some deliveries. you don’t even want to know what was going on inside that car, I am just glad we ate there, instead of having had this guy bring the food to our home.
I didn’t feel like I would ever come back, and wonder if the place will survive in 2014.

I actually used to like Leonas food. Its was pretty good, but have become worse and worse over the years.
The worst part about this restaurant is the people that takes orders on the phone for delivery or pick-​up. Three, 3, times have they given us wrong food for our delivery order. One time they put bacon on our burger, even though we said we are vegans, and for sure — I did not order bacon. Yesterday I ordered 2 vegan burgers. The guy seemed like he didnt get my order, so I went over it a few times. My girlfriend sat next to me and heard that there was nothing that could be misunderstood on our order.
However, the food arrives, and we got ONE burger. One burger with everything that was supposed to be on top of both burgers, as well as some stuff I did not order. We call in, and complain. After we hang up, we split the burger to find out its a f*********** regular burger. We try to cll back to the restaurant, but they dont pick up the phone, so we have to call ANOTHER location to make them call them. Thanks to the ones at Lakeview for beeing so nice.
We were offered a small credit, but I am not gonna use it, as this place seriously stinks. At least the UK Wicker Park location.