Zelda's Original Gourmet Pizza

Large sausage & pepperoni

Zelda's is a Chicago style pizza place in Sacramento, located in midtown. The pizza has been rated highly in Sacramento News & Review Readers Polls for years, and is quite popular on weekends. The restaurant itself is old and dark. It is really just a converted bar. The lack of windows, dim lighting, and cramped tables attest to this. The place is a pizza dive in the truest sense.

Tips for ordering:

Call ahead of time and place your order. When the place is busy this will speed up the service as they can pre-make the pizza for you and it will be ready soon after you are seated. When waits at this place can regularly exceed an hour this is a godsend.

Quality of food:

It's great pizza, but for Chicago Style, it is merely OK. The crust is a little gritty since it uses cornmeal to get the trademark yellow color.

2005-06-09 14:34:26   I was taken here on a date. A pizza place, in Sacramento, for a date? Well, let me just say it was worth it. You really can't get this kind of pizza in Davis. I've never had this sort of pizza before, so consider me uneducated, but I liked how it was, well, sort of inside out! —PhilipNeustrom

2005-07-11 19:56:44   I guess I like California pizza too much. I found Zelda's to be so horrible I only ate half a slice and left the rest of the "soup" in its "pan". If you need a spoon to slop a "slice" on your plate, you're not eating pizza IMO. So I didn't like it, nor did several others in my company. In the interest of full disclosure, I've never liked east coast pizza very much. And it's not like I had west coast pale imitations, I went to New York last year and ate at Lombardi's. —JesseSingh

2006-09-09 13:17:58   Chicago style pizza is not East Coast (New York) pizza. For one reason, Chiacgo is not on the east coast. Chicago and New York style pizzas are as close to polar opposites as pizza gets. —JustinLanska

2006-09-09 21:06:39   Let me tell you: having grown up in Sacramento and eating Zelda's at least once a month, the pizza is a million times better if you get it to go and eat it at home. It is even better cold for breakfast the next morning. I jump for joy on mornings there is Zelda's in the fridge. —ElisaHough

2006-11-08 23:23:13   Having been raised on Zachary's, I've long wanted to sample Zelda's and compare. I can now say that Zelda's will do in a pinch, so long as I need a fix and know that I won't be visiting the Bay Area in the next month. The pizza had a good, tangy sauce and there were plenty of toppings. The crust was crisp and smelled buttery when taken from the oven (ordered half-baked); unfortunately, it had the consistency and bland flavor of a thick pie crust with too much shortening. This came close to countering, instead of complementing, the toppings and seasonings. As a side note, Zelda's menu does not offer a stuffed version. . . hence the willingness to hold off a few weeks for Zachary's. —KevinChin

2007-06-22 20:16:09   I have been to Zelda's a few times since the end of the millennium. It's always been good. I went earlier this week for lunch, and it was the best pizza I had ever had there. Perhaps it was because it was less busy, but perhaps it's because they improved the 'pie crust' recently. The non-pizza items are decent. It's also dark and vaguely seedy. —MisterProfessor

2008-04-04 11:30:58   I used to live around the corner from Zelda's. I haven't eaten there for a few years, but, as a former Chicagoan (my hometown), I can attest that Zelda's pizza is authentic and good. The best Chicago pizza is better than this, but it is competitive. The corn meal is part of an authentic Chicago pizza. It's a matter of taste, but it is far better than NY style in my opinion. It is heavy and it isn't neat. But it is satisfying. The atmosphere hasn't changed in many years and yes, it is dark and essentially a bar. Must be good to have lasted so long. —PaulIgasaki

2009-04-28 14:25:03   Zelda's? Do they wear floppy green hats and fake ears? PLEASE tell me they do! —MasonMurray