Papa Del's Pizza Factory - Champaign

This is our place for pizza. the crust is vegan, and we have both the thin crust (in the rule w/spinach and garlic) and deep dish (sometimes add artichoke or other sweet.) ask for vegan sauce and vegan cheese. the one part is adding toppings quickly, and the vegan options count as 2 toppings. also pizzas are made to order, and especially for the deep dish tend to 60-90 minutes. if they want to immerse, call in advance to place their order, or be ready to hang up for a long time. there are no vegan appetizers, except salate and fries.

Having not been back to campus since before the pandemic in 2019, when I finally had the opportunity to go back a couple weeks ago I knew I had to stop by one of my college favorites which was Papa Del’s. You just can’t beat the garlic donuts with marinara sauce, followed by a nice deep dish pizza with a coupe meats on it! I was in pizza heaven that night, especially after barely eating anything earlier in the day due to travel time and events on campus! It was exactly how I remembered it from a few years before. I will say even though they are known for their deep dish, their more traditional thin pizzas are also phenomenal! While the food is definitely five stars, the service that night was closer to a 2/3 star experience, especially considering how not busy it was there. Our waitress seemed like her mind was on another planet and it took almost 30 min after ordering food and drinks for my friend to get her beer. I know the pizzas take around 40-60 minutes to make, so I always expect a decent wait when I don’t call in orders ahead of time, but from the time we ordered it took 1.5 hours for the pizza to arrive which is definitely longer than it should have given there were only a handful of other tables occupied. In addition every time we asked our waitress for something like more water, a to go box, the check… she disappeared for a long time and it was obnoxiously late in the evening by the time we finally left the restaurant. I’m hoping that’s not the norm, and I will always go back because the food is like none other! Highly recommend to anyone on campus, especially for a football or basketball game since it’s optimally located close to the stadiums!

Papa Del's is the go to pizza place in Champaign. So we had to check it out. We have gone once before when they were packed and it was definitely a long wait for a pizza. This time though it was lunch time and slower. Although you just wait a while for the pizza it is worth it! The sauce is sweet, the cheese is definitely melted to perfection, and the flavors mixed well together. The staff were nice and courteous. I would definitely go again!

Came in for lunch with my kid. We tried the lunch special slices. They weren’t particularly special, and not straight out of the oven quality, but you don’t expect that for a sliced pizza lunch special. It was good for what it is! I will be back to try a made-to-order pizza as they looked particularly good from the tables I saw next to us. At that time if it’s a good and tasty experience, I’ll consider the 5 star.

Pizza was one of the best I 've had. Sauce is spicy and sweet. Crust is perfect and they are generous with the toppings. If it wasn 't for the pizza I 'd be rating this one star. Staff isn 't very knowledgeable, friendly, or punctual. Went in when it was kind of dead and was told the pizza would take one hour and 45 minutes. Asked if I 'd get a text or call when it was ready and was told they don 't have the technology for this yet they have a phone. How hard is it to call and tell me my pizza is ready? So I come back an hour later and am told it 'll take over an hour for a seat yet half the place is empty with many clean tables available so I sit at the bar. Took 20 minutes for a bartender to acknowledge my existence and put in an appetizer. Once my pizza was supposed to be ready I had to wait in line several minutes just to ask and she said it wasn 't but would yell my name when it was ready 40 minutes later my appetizer comes finally and was delicious. It was the Garlic butter doughnuts. Never once did the lady yell so I stood in line again and surely there it was in the warming oven. Was it there the whole time or did she just choose to not alert me? So total it took about 3 hours for my pizza. Pizza is good but not 3 hours waiting good with no serivice. They need to invest in more pizza ovens and re-train their entire staff. Oh and I found a hair baked into the crust. Wasn 't mine because I was using a fork and this hair was inside an untouched piece.