Rocco's Cafe & Pizzeria: User Reviews

The patio is awesome. The food was great. The drink specials were what initially brought me in. They have trivia on Tuesdays. I don't know how this places stays under the radar. All of the employees seem to really enjoy working there and were very friendly. I have tried quite a few things on the menu and have yet to be disappointed. I feel like it is only a matter of time before this place blows up!

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We went to Rocco's with some younger family members and called beforehand to see if there was a wait. We were assured there was not, but when we got there 5 minutes later, there ended up being over a half hour wait. There was definitely a miscommunication between the hostesses outside and whoever we spoke to on the phone. The hostesses outside were also rude and seemed stressed out. We were told that while there were many tables available, the kitchen was "behind". Note to Rocco's: when you have an outdoor patio that big, hire enough people to keep the food coming. The food was fine and the patio is a nice place to have dinner and drinks, but this place definitely has some kinks to work out.

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On a picture perfect summer day, my friend and I were in the city at Lincoln Park Zoo. A friend had told us about a nearby restaurant, Rocco's, so we decided to give it a try for lunch. It was a short 10 minute walk from the zoo. We were greeted by a very friendly hostess who seated us in the outdoor patio and made sure we were comfortable with just the right amount of sun and shade. The patio is one of the largest I've seen, and has baskets of beautiful flower that border the entire patio area, as well as several trees inside the patio area that provide some nice shade. (Great background for pics w/friends and family)! The friendliness continued when our waitress came to our table. She promptly brought our beverages and then informed us of the daily special, chicken parmegiana. What a deal..........$6.00 for 2 chicken breasts, soup, and a side of pasta! We also ordered the chopped salad. We mentioned to the waitress that we were going to split both of these and she offered to have the splitting of the entrees done for us in the kitchen, so we didn't have to mess with it. How sweet! Both entrees were delicious.......loved the red sauce on the chicken parmegiana and the italian vinaigrette on the chopped salad! Upon finishing our meal we stayed at our table for another 45 minutes, just visiting and enjoying the beautiful summer day. Our waitress never made us feel in a rush to leave. I will definitely be returning to Roccos because of the all round great experience I had!

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Rocco's is my new favorite restaurant in Lincoln Park. My friend and I shared the Bruschetta appetizer (which was amazing!) and I ordered the Chicken Parmigana for dinner. I was very pleased, to say the least, with both choices. My friend muched on the Rocco's Speciality thin crust pizzam which was also quite tasty! We lounged outside on the patio, then creeped out way inside to the bar area at dusk. The atmosphere is upbeat and happy in Rocco's and the male baretender was very friendly. I can't wait to make it back to my new favorite spot!

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I went there the other night with my wife.... and that was one of the only things that went well the whole evening.... Like the review before we went to the bar and had a couple of drinks before being sat on the patio, and like the other review was greeted by a large "gentleman" bartendering, and there was nothing nice about him, he was a jerk and acted like it was inconvience to serve us....finally we got seated outside and that wasnt much better, server was overwhelmed but she was the best thing about our visit. I felt so bad for her, she did a great job, and all she could do is say sorry... sorry for the food that was awful and sorry for it taking so long... we told her that we new it wasnt her fault she doesnt cook the food... she would be the only reason we would go back, but we wont being doing that and i would say no one else should .... stay away..... They should start over

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Rocco's has a huge patio and a very large indoor area and the food is great, but to be honest I was very dissatisfied with my visit to Rocco's.
The service that night at Rocco's was poor. Before we went out to the patio to eat, a group of us had a few drinks at the bar, which was quite an experience. There was a larger man tending bar who was terribly rude when greeting us and seemed to not even give a damn. To top things off he seemed to be sweating profusely. YEA...that's exactly what i'm looking for when I order a drink, "Dry martini, hold the olive, but you know what...add a little sweat for taste". The same night we ate on the patio and you could tell that they were ridiculously understaffed. We sat on the patio and there were only a few servers on a patio that looked to seat 130+ people. We waited at least 10 minutes for a server to even approach our table and It took forever for us to get our food. It was obvious that it wasn't our servers fault since he was busting his hump to wait on what it looked to be at least 8-9 tables. I mean don't get me wrong...The server was great...Once he made it to the table. Rocco's tries to draw people in with the huge patio, but they don't have nearly enough people working on a given night to make it run smoothly. If you ask me it looks like a managerial issue. They need to get their act together or they will soon fail in this neighborhood.

On a better note, the food was great. If your looking for a place to get an excellent pizza and some beer, then this is the place to go. We also got the chopped salad and my friend got the chicken Limone, which were all very good as well.

Overall, the servers were nice, respectful and made us feel like we were at home once they made it to you. I would recommend this place to grab a drink and some pizza, since the bar seems to be quite popular, but be prepared for slow service (unless the management has changed their scheduling by now), some possible attitude and your daily helping of sweat!!

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The pizza is really really good. We ordered it by phone, took our time getting there to pick it up, it was warm.....and was still very very good. The sauce has real pieces of tomatoes that are sweet, and the thin crust still had a wonderful fresh crunch that was not to hard or to soft. In our opinion.....the best for the price in the whole area.

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The location is one that we hung out at regularly after beach volloeyball every Thursday when it was Renalli's pizza. We were anxious to try Rocco's once it opened because the patio is one of our favorite places to relax. The prices are good and the service is decent so it is a good place to go for a drink on a nice day BUT.... the food was unfortunately horrible. There were 5 of us that all got someothing different from salads to pizza and it was all lacking flavor. The pizza tasted like it was frozen and undercooked. The chopped salad had absolutely no flavor and was drownding in oil. The pasta was bland. I am SOOOO disappointed and I hope the owners read this and do something about the menu! We really want this local place to survive but it will not unless the menu improves drastically. Also, the old place had these great little white lights up in the trees which added ambiance, character, and best of all light as it started to get dark. Rocco's mistakenly removed these so as the sun sets, the patio becomes dank. Lots of improvements to make but hopefully they will come around. We will check back, if nothing else, for a beer.

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My girlfriend and I headed to Rocco's today after visiting the Old Town Art Fair, we were seated promptly outside by a really nice hostess and that's where the warmth and good service ended. We sat, checked out the menus and decided what we wanted and chatted...and chatted, and chatted. 10 -15 mninutes passed and, despite servers tending tables on every side of us, not ONE server checked our table. Our table must have been invisible to the guy's bringing water to the tables, too, because we observed two tables seated after us served water. I observed the nice hostess who sat us saying something in a discrete manner about servicing our table (who it was or perhaps directing) to the waiter tending the table to our right and several, several minutes passed and he never acknowledged us nor saw to it that someone else did either. My girlfriend and I got up and left and the lovely hostess who sat us watched and she and her co-hostess simply looked and commented to one another. I'll try and stop back to enjoy what was always a great patio when under a former ownership and/or name, but this is one of the first times I can recall going unnoticed for so long and for no good explanation at any restaurant.

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Saw Rocco's on Metromix and wanted to check out what everyone was raving about. To start off, their outdoor patio is fantastic, 186 seats... WOW. It looks fabulous with all of the flowers/planters and cozy feeling. We started with the baked clams which were seasoned well with a delicious wine sauce and the bruschetta a classic recipe done WELL. We then moved on to the main course and since we are pizza connoisseurs we ordered the Rocco's Special thin crust. Let me just say they have perfected the thin crust here in the city. Possibly the best sausage I have ever had on a pizza as well. While we were enjoying our pizza the chef stopped by to see how everything was. We were very charmed. We just love when we get to talk to the chef and he told us about the new brunch they are having now, and the breakfast pizza, which we will definitely be stopping by to try!!! The service overall was fantastic, it was coursed well, never felt rushed and never had empty dishes sitting on the table. Our servers name was Whitney D, excellent. Even with us ordering two rounds of drinks, appetizers, and pizza it was still incredibly reasonable night out to dinner which we like! We encourage you all to check it out, we know you will enjoy!

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