Beggars Pizza (Orland Park)
11329 W. 143rd StreetI’m not going to leave Chicago without a pizza. That would just be stupid.
J and the kids went to a group dinner with skaters from our team in Kalamazoo and skaters from a team in Ann Arbor. The kids all get along so the coaches thought maybe the parents should get together too.
If we only had one car, I would have went with them but a dinner at a restaurant with a group of over 40 people did not sound like fun to me. J let me off the hook. They went to Papa Joe’s in Orland Park while I headed to our hotel for the night in Tinley Park.
I was really close to just ordering take out from Papa Joe’s but it was a little out of my way. Instead, I went with a Chicago area chain that I have never actually had before. I got so set in my ways with going to J’s family’s favorite place in Oak Lawn that I never branched out once she and I started dating.
I had a few options but ended up choosing Beggars Pizza on 143rd Street and Wolf Road in Orland Park. The restaurant is on the northwest side of the Chicago suburb in a shopping plaza is one of about 30 locations in the Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana area.
Like most Chicago pizza restaurants, there is a separate entrance for carry-out orders. It’s on the side of the west side of building behind the main dining room.
There’s not much inside the pickup area. It’s a pretty small room with enough room for a counter and a drink cooler off to the side. I gave the lady working my name and she said the pizza was not quite out of the oven yet.
That gave me a little bit of time to look around.
There’s a full service pizza parlor in the front half of the restaurant. The sun was a little harsh when I was in there around 6:00 on a Friday night and it made the whole space feel a bit darker than it actually is. The tables and chairs are all dark wood which adds to the feel. There are a couple of TV’s scattered throughout the space tuned to Chicago sports.
There are also some large wooden booths that take up the space near the back of the restaurants. These looked hard and uncomfortable to me but I’m a bigger guy so most booths are uncomfortable. I didn’t sit down to try them out though.
After a quick restroom stop, I headed back to the carry-out area where a server was coming out of the back with the box. I had ordered a small thin crust pizza with Italian beef and giardiniera. The cost was a little over $21 which is about average for pizza in Chicago.
I headed to our hotel for the night in Tinley Park. We had stayed in Orland Park the previous two nights but the price doubled for Friday night at the hotel we were at so we moved to a cheaper one. I got checked in and got all of our bags up to the room then popped the box open.
The first thing I noticed is that the thin crust wasn’t a Chicago Tavern style thin crust. It was a little bit thicker than that and cut in triangles, not squares. The toppings were underneath a thick layer of golden brown cheese.
I picked up the first slice, took a bite, then instantly forgot about the tavern style crust I was expecting. The thin crust from Beggars holds up really well to the thick layer of sliced beef and pickled vegetables that were underneath the cheese. The sauce has a little bit of sweetness that really gives the pizza a unique taste. The cheese layer is pretty thick but also necessary to hold the slices together.
I liked this pizza a lot more than I thought I would when I first opened the box. I was craving the Chicago tavern crust pizza but this one probably filled me up better than a cracker thin crust would have. The sauce was really tasty and there was just enough spiciness from the hot giardiniera that was under the cheese. Had I gone with J and the kids, I would have still gotten a delicious pizza but it wouldn’t have had the beef and giardiniera. I hate that I’m anti-social sometimes but I think I ended up with a little bit better pizza this time.
SW Michigan Dining 