What do you actually get at a pizza-and-beer chain that’s been around since the 1970s? That’s the fair question to ask before walking into Old Chicago Pizza & Taproom on Eagle Road, and the honest answer in Meridian is: more than you’d expect from a place you’ve probably driven past a dozen times without stopping.
The Meridian location sits in the retail corridor near The Village, in that stretch of Eagle Road where chain restaurants crowd the frontage road and it’s easy to write off everything in the vicinity. Old Chicago gets lumped in with the forgettable middleground, and that’s a mistake worth correcting. The dining room is big without feeling cavernous — booths along the walls, high-tops near the bar, TVs angled for game-watching without dominating the whole space. It’s the kind of place that works for a weeknight dinner just as well as a Saturday afternoon when you want to catch a game and eat something substantial.
The pizza is the main event, and it earns its place there. Old Chicago built its reputation on Chicago-style deep dish, but the Meridian kitchen runs both deep dish and a thinner tavern-style crust, and the tavern version is genuinely good — crisp underneath, with toppings that don’t slide off in a wet pile. The Chicago Seven is the one to order if it’s your first visit: fennel sausage, pepperoni, roasted red peppers, black olives, mushrooms, onions, and mozzarella on either crust style. The deep dish version takes about 40 minutes, so plan accordingly and order an appetizer. The chips and queso are better than they have any right to be.
The tap list is the other reason locals circle back here. Old Chicago has always leaned into craft beer, and the Meridian taproom keeps a solid rotating selection alongside the standards — usually 30 or more handles, with a decent showing from Idaho and regional Pacific Northwest breweries mixed in among the nationals. The staff knows the list. Ask what’s on that’s local and you’ll get a real answer, not a shrug. Pints run $5–$8 depending on what you’re drinking.
Prices across the board are reasonable for a sit-down dinner. A large pizza for two people runs $20–$28 depending on toppings and crust. Sandwiches and pastas fill out the menu for anyone who doesn’t want pizza, and the Chicago beef sandwich — thin-sliced beef, giardiniera, provolone on a hoagie roll — is worth knowing about.
Lunch on weekdays is less crowded and moves at a better pace. Weekend evenings get busy, especially when there’s a major game on, so if you’re bringing a group, calling ahead or arriving before 6 p.m. is smart. They don’t take reservations for parties under a certain size, so walk-ins are normal but wait times can stretch on busy nights.
Nothing about Old Chicago is going to surprise anyone who follows restaurant trends. It’s not doing anything avant-garde. But it does what it does with consistency and care, and in a city that keeps adding new concepts every few months, there’s real value in a place that just gets the pizza and the beer right, every time you show up.
