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| - My parents remember this place fondly from their days as poor graduate students at UIUC and 30+ years later, we had the opportunity to visit Papa Del's in Champaign on a visit to the campus. Although it's moved from their old location, it brought back lots of memories for my parents and we all very much enjoyed our lunch.
Papa Del's was relatively empty at 2pm on a Monday afternoon, but I can imagine it gets crazy during the school year, particularly on a weekend night. The prices were cheaper than I might have expected (based on visiting some deep dish places in downtown Chicago), and the beer was definitely well-priced. I can see why it attracted students of UIUC way back in the day and continues to do so now.
We ordered a medium deep dish with Pepperoni, Mushroom, and Extra Cheese. It was the perfect pizza for 3 people, although I ate half the pizza by myself, and could have kept going had we not had dinner plans about 3 hours later. We got the Blue Moon on draft, but they also had Sam Adams as well as a few other drafts.
Service was efficient, professional, and courteous, and ambiance was what you'd expect from a college-town pizzeria. No more, no less.
Overall, it was great to enjoy lunch at Papa Del's not only for nostalgic reasons, but also for the quality of the pizza. I'm certainly no deep-dish pizza expert, but this place really hit the spot for us!
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