Jimano’s Pizzeria (Gurnee)
7010 W. Grand AvenueWater park can be exhausting!
B and I came back to Great Wolf Lodge in Gurnee around noon. We had been up early to watch L compete at the Southport Summer Classic at the Pleasant Prairie Rec Plex in nearby Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin.
L didn’t want to leave when she was done. She still wanted to watch her friends and teammates. J brought B and I back to the resort so he could swim.
B swam for a couple of hours then we went back to the room to chill for a while. We put Netflix on the TV and watched Minions thinking the girls would be home around dinner time.
They ended up staying pretty late so I suggested just picking up pizzas when they got back.
Great Wolf Lodge has a pizza place and it was really close to where our room was. I could have taken the easy way out and just ordered from Hungry as a Wolf, but we did that once in Traverse City and the pizzas were Little Ceasars $5 Hot ‘n Ready quality but way more than $5. Like I’ve said a lot in my blogs about our stay at Great Wolf Lodge, it was fine.
But Gurnee is close to Chicago and there is much better pizza.
I started looking on Google and found a couple of highly rated places nearby. I, of course, chose the one with online ordering.
Jimano’s Pizzeria is on Grand Avenue and Brookside in Gurnee just to the west of the Gurnee Mills Mall. The small pizzeria is located in a pretty generic shopping plaza that also, weirdly, has a Firestone Auto Center. This is one of nine Jimano’s locations. Most are in the northern Chicago suburbs but there is also one in nearby Pleasant Prairie and two in Colorado.
I put the order in online as J and L were driving back to Gurnee. I met them in the parking lot and grabbed the car then headed down the street to get the pizzas.
The restaurant is pretty typical for a carry-out pizza place. There was a woman standing behind the small counter as I walked in and she asked me for my name before I could even get to her. She went to the kitchen to find the order and came back out with two small boxes and a bag. I had already paid online so there was nothing left for me to do.
We were kind of done for the night so I headed back to the hotel with the pizzas. There is a pretty good size dine in area in the restaurant though so we could have made this a restaurant trip instead of just picking up pizzas and eating them in bed but we didn’t know that at the time and everyone was tired and just wanted to relax so carry-out was the best option.
I ordered us two pizzas and an order of Jimano’s Famous Mouth Water Bread Sticks.
I popped open the container with the bread sticks when we got back to the room. I ordered these because L typically eats more bread sticks than she does pizza and these bread sticks were really good. They are small chunks than typical bread sticks but they are covered in garlic butter and Parmesan cheese. There was a cup of marinara included but no one really used. The buttery, garlicky bread sticks were so good without it. The order is pretty large and we ate about 3/4 of it. Like I figured, L ate several pieces but she also really liked the pizza so she didn’t eat as much as I assumed she would.
I went with two smaller pizzas because 1.) they were pretty expensive and 2.) we were checking out of Great Wolf Lodge in the morning and moving to a cheaper hotel in Racine for our last night so I didn’t want to deal with leftovers.
I got the rest of the family a 12″ pizza with pepperoni on one half and well done. This type of thin crust pizza is an absolute favorite in our family. It’s known as Chicago tavern-style and it’s what J grew up on living in the south suburbs. The pizza is thin and crispy with a thin layer of sauce and cheese. The pepperoni side had the meat under the cheese and we ordered it “well-done” so it came out really nice golden brown and crispy. Our kids can be really, really picky pizza eaters but both of them really like this style of pizza and really liked this particular pizza. There was very little arguing about actually eating which is so rare these days.
I really wanted to go outside of the resort for pizza because, as I’ve mentioned, we were close to Chicago. And that means I can get Italian beef on the pizza.
I ordered the 10″ Italian Beef Crowd Pleaser. This pizza come with sliced beef and hot giardiniera. I only got the 10″ because 1.) it’s expensive and 2.) I knew I wouldn’t stop eating until the pizza was gone and I didn’t really want to eat a 16″ pizza at that particular moment. The pizza was so good. There was pretty consistent layer of sliced beef underneath the cheese and a large portion of giardiniera poking it’s way through the cheese layer. This type of pizza is by far my favorite type of pizza. Nothing beats the tavern-style with a deconstructed Italian beef sandwich hiding underneath the cheese.
I’ve mentioned a couple of times it was pretty expensive. We got two fairly small pizzas plus an order of bread sticks and the bill was still close to $60.
Jimano’s Pizzeria is exactly what I was hoping we would get when I made the decision to go outside of the resort and find a good pizza. The pizza was fantastic. So many people associate the Deep Dish with Chicago but this style is really what Chicago should be known for. I never did get an Italian beef on this trip but I did get an Italian beef pizza and it was amazing.
SW Michigan Dining 