Monical’s Pizza Restaurant

Basic Information:

Pizza: Monical’s Pizza Restaurant

Number of Locations: around 60 across 4 states; based just south of Chicago

Location Reviewed: 850 W. Main Street in El Paso, IL (I-39 exit 14)

Website: https://www.monicals.com/

Date of Review Visit: August 2018

What I Ordered: 8” pan pizza with sausage and pepperoni; Dr. Pepper to drink

Price: $9.46 (includes drink and tax but not tip)

Photo:

Summary Review: 3 stars (out of 5)

Detailed Review:

Crust: Monical’s offers 2 crust options: thin and pan.  As will come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog, I chose pan.  The pan crust is thick but not super thick, and it has a nice crispy on the outside but chewy on the inside texture.  Overall, this is a pretty good pan crust.  Score: 8/10.

Sauce: The tomato in the logo suggests that the sauce will be the strength of this pizza, and the tomato tells the truth.  The sauce has a thick consistency, appears in high quantity, and has a nice tomatoey taste.  What more could you want?  Score: 10/10.

Cheese: This pizza does not have a ton of cheese, but it produces a lot of grease.  As good as the sauce is, the cheese is equally bad.  Score: 3/10.

Toppings: The sausage appears in small chunks but has no flavor whatsoever.  The pepperoni comes in thin slices with just a little spice.  There is also a “topping” of spices sprinkled all of the pizza; I never care for this many spices.  The two real toppings appear in decent but not overwhelming quantity.  Score: 6/10.

Overall Taste: The overall taste is very underwhelming.  The sauce saves what could be a disaster.  Score: 6.5/10.

Pizza Appearance: The pizza has a nice crust-dominated pan pizza appearance.

Dining Atmosphere: Monical’s has a nice dining room with antique sports equipment hanging on the walls, but the entire room smelled like beer.  The independent Baptist I am does not like that smell.

Customer Service: The service seemed rushed even though they were not super busy on my visit.

Monetary Value: This is not the best pizza around, but it is pretty cheap.  Therefore, the value is pretty good.

The Final Judgment:

Monical’s is definitely not elite, but it has some things going for it.  I would stop at Monical’s again if I found myself near one.  Score: 73/100.