Rick and Marc Malnati run a prosperous chain of pizza restaurants started nearly 25 years ago by their father Lou. As they were getting ready to open a Naperville outlet, their ninth, a friend of theirs came to the brothers with a proposition.
Lou Malnati once managed pizzerias Uno and Due, the crowded off-Loop spots that popularized deep-dish pizza after World War II. “Dad was the horse of the operation,” says Marc. But Lou eventually fell out with the owners, and in 1971 he opened his own place in Lincolnwood. Lou stuffed his restaurant with sports memorabilia and gained notice for hosting an annual fund-raiser in the memory of Brian Piccolo, the Chicago Bear whose death from cancer became the subject of a book and a TV movie.
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The corporation had failed every time it tried to set up a business or factory in the area, but after meeting the Malnatis Gordon decided to give it another try. He has a gift for enlisting others in his causes. “I have a certain passion,” Gordon says, “and I guess it’s contagious.” When he suggested tithing to the Malnatis, he didn’t have to twist their arms. “Rick and I had thought for a long time that we should be giving back more than we had been,” says Marc. “We’d been blessed–we always felt God had had a hand in our pizzas.”
The restaurant space will boast a terrazzo floor, tables and booths seating a hundred, and a large kitchen in back. Four apartments are going in upstairs, and the city has rebuilt the sidewalks in front. Two wooden, shield-shaped signs advertising the pizzeria will hang over Ogden and Cermak. “It’s been a project and a half,” says Goldsmith, “but it makes me feel good to produce something beautiful.”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Bob Drea.
