The History of Lou's

Decade by decade, slice by slice, take an in-depth look at the history of Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria, serving Chicago's best deep dish pizza since 1971.

1970s

On March 17th, 1971, Lou Malnati and his wife Jean opened the first Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria in Lincolnwood, IL. Lou always thought it was funny that an Italian should open a pizzeria in a Jewish neighborhood on an Irish holiday, but that was just Lou’s style. He wanted his restaurant to be a model of hospitality, a place dedicated to family.

Opening day 1971 was a day to remember, not only because hungry customers were getting their first taste of Lou’s soon to be legendary deep dish pizza, but because a car crashed through the walls of the main dining room during the dinner hour. Looking back on it, Jean says this incident made for an “exciting” opening day, but like with all things, the Malnatis bounced back.

After meeting with enormous success in Lincolnwood, Lou decided it was time to expand the business, and he opened another pizzeria in Elk Grove Village, close to Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. Unfortunately, a road construction project began just a few months after the opening, and the next 14 months nearly put Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria out of business. Lou refused to give up, and as soon as construction finished, the customers came back in droves.

The Malnatis were not so fortunate when they opened their third pizzeria in south suburban Flossmoor in 1977, just a year before Lou died. The logistical nightmare of opening a location over 50 miles from where Lou had created his "hub" in the north suburbs almost bankrupted the family. Just 16 months after opening, they were forced to close this pizzeria, and were left owing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Somehow, Lou's indomitable spirit lived on, as his son, Marc, graduated from college and joined Jean. In the Malnati tradition, they steadied the ship and paid back their vendors over the next few years.

From the very start, the Malnati family has been passionate about giving back to the community that supports them.

Starting in 1971, Lou and Jean hosted their first annual charity event to raise a scholarship fund for a local athlete that would play football at Wake Forest University, in the name of famous Chicago Bear Brian Piccolo, who passed away from cancer.

After Lou also fell victim to cancer in 1978, Jean transformed this dinner into the Lou Malnati’s Cancer Research Benefit. To date, the Lou Malnati’s Cancer Research Fund has raised over $3.5 million to benefit organizations who are dedicated to finding a cure for cancer.

Locations opened: Lincolnwood (March 17th, 1971), Elk Grove Village (November 16th, 1971), Flossmoor (January 3rd, 1977)

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1980s

Marc's brother, Rick, joined the team in 1981, and the brothers assumed leadership of the enterprise.

With two successful locations going strong in Lincolnwood and Elk Grove Village, they decided it was time to open a third location in Wilmette, IL in 1981. This pizzeria in Wilmette was unique because rather than having a full dining room, it only offered carryout and delivery. This model of carryout and delivery proved to be incredibly successful, and vital to the future success of Lou Malnati’s. Presently, the majority of Lou Malnati’s Pizzerias are carryout and delivery only locations.

The Malnatis doubled down on quality, and began to make investments in creating a product that could truly stand the test of time.

They created loyal, long-term relationships with suppliers that also believed in the pursuit of excellence. They routinely visited the dairy where their cheese was prepared, and traveled to California each year at harvest time to choose their tomato crop.

1980 marked the first Taste of Chicago, and it was a great opportunity for people from all over Chicagoland and tourists alike to try our deep dish pizza.

To this day, you can always find our legendary deep dish pizza cooked fresh on site at the Taste of Chicago, and other summer festivals like Lollapalooza.

With a growing demand for our pizza, in 1989, we opened our first north suburban pizzeria in Buffalo Grove. Unlike previous restaurant openings, this one created incredible buzz across the entire area. People lined up for hours to get into this new Lou Malnati's Pizzeria, that seated over 250 people!

Locations opened: Wilmette (June 22nd, 1981), Northbrook (February 1st, 1982), Schaumburg (October 22nd, 1985), Chicago – River North (May 5th, 1986), Buffalo Grove (March 1st, 1989)

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1990s

By this time, our deep dish pizza had made quite a national name for itself. Ex-Chicagoans all over the country were missing their favorite hometown pizza, and so, "Lou Malnati's Priority Pizza" was born. We began shipping our pizzas coast to coast to satisfy their cravings, and the trend really caught on!

Meanwhile, our local pizzerias were still experiencing tremendous growth. We opened 10 locations in a 10 year period, including a Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria in Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood. Lou Malnati’s Lawndale opened with the goal of helping to rejuvenate the neighborhood. We promised to give any profits from the store back to the community to benefit children’s educational and recreational programs, and although it took a while, in 2011, this restaurant turned its first profit. As promised, the money was donated back into the community.

We are proud of this continuing partnership with the Lawndale community.

Locations opened: Mount Prospect (September 15th, 1992), Naperville – Downtown (February 14th, 1994), Highland Park (April 12th, 1995), Chicago – Lawndale (November 8th, 1995), Park Ridge (April 15th, 1996), Libertyville (October 1st, 1996), Elmhurst (June 2nd, 1997), Palatine (May 4th, 1998), Chicago – Lincoln Park (November 24th, 1998), Carol Stream (March 5th, 1999)

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2000s

With the new millennium came new opportunities for growth. Expanding within the Chicago city limits became a major goal, and while we continued to open new locations all over the suburbs, we added new Chicago locations to expand our delivery zones.

Meanwhile... our Lou Malnati's Priority Pizza mail-order venture was picking up more and more steam! In 2000, we decided to partner with other iconic Chicago brands like Lettuce Entertain You, Portillo’s, and Eli's Cheesecake Company, to create Tastes of Chicago, a website and shipping service where the best foods Chicago has to offer can be found in one place.

In 2009, our Tastes of Chicago division donated thousands of pizzas to the “Pizzas4Patriots” initiative to give U.S. troops overseas a taste of home.

The economic recession dealt a major blow to businesses all over the country, and although we felt the burn, we also saw this as a great opportunity to strike favorable real estate deals and open more pizzerias, greatly expanding our reach across Chicagoland. Between 2000-2010, we opened 13 locations, and then 15 more stores between 2011-2016.

Locations opened: Schaumburg – Barrington Road (January 22nd, 2001), Naperville – South 95th (February 14th, 2001), Bloomingdale (November 14th, 2001), Evanston (May 8th, 2003), Grayslake/Gurnee (January 13th, 2005), Western Springs (June 27th, 2005), Geneva (October 24th, 2005), Lake Zurich (April 6th, 2007), Lakewood (August 29th, 2007), Chicago – Bucktown/Wicker Park (August 16th, 2007), Lake Forest (March 5th, 2008), Chicago – South Loop (2008) Tinley Park (March 26th, 2009), Bolingbrook (September 30th, 2010), Chicago – Gold Coast (July 4th, 2011), Downers Grove (February 28th, 2011), Joliet/Shorewood (April 12th, 2012), Oak Lawn (November 8th, 2012), Elgin (June 20th, 2013), Oak Park (February 10th, 2014), Palos Heights (September 25th, 2014), Chicago – West Loop (October 20th, 2014), Chicago – Lincoln Square/North Center (May 4th, 2015), Oswego (February 17th, 2015), Harwood Heights (June 6th, 2015), Buzz Bait Taqueria (August 21st, 2015), Cary (November 4th, 2015), New Lenox (February 15th, 2016), Chicago – Old Irving/Six Corners (March 17th, 2016), Phoenix (2016)

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2010-2020's

We headed to the Valley in May of 2016, opening our first out-of-state pizzeria right in the heart of Phoenix. The opening was met with a great deal of excitement from the local community as hundreds of people lined the sidewalks while waiting to enter the restaurant. The crowd grew so giant that police were called in to direct traffic, and a local traffic reporter even covered the scene from a helicopter while enjoying a slice of our deep dish. In September of the following year, we added a carryout store in the Arcadia neighborhood in Phoenix before opening another full-service restaurant in Scottsdale in 2018 and a carryout location in Glendale in 2020. We didn’t slow down there, adding carryout locations in Mesa, Gilbert and Chandler between 2021 and 2022. On December 13, 2022, we opened the doors at our third full-service restaurant in Tempe Marketplace at 23 S. McClintock.

In July 2019, we crossed the state line and opened our Schererville store in Northwest Indiana, our first pizzeria in the Hoosier state. We ventured south toward Indianapolis in October of 2020 when we opened our second Indiana carryout location in Carmel. Two more stores opened in 2021, beginning with a second Indianapolis carryout on West 86th in June followed by our first dine in restaurant in Broad Ripple on November 3rd. Our Greenwood carryout store opened in June 2022, marking our fourth store in the Indianapolis area. On Feb. 6, 2023, we returned once again to Northwest Indiana when we opened our Crown Point store, marking our sixth opening in the state in less than four years. Our seventh followed just over a month later, returning to the Indianapolis area with our Avon carryout location.

It was finally time to head north in December 2019, as we entered America’s Dairyland with our first Wisconsin pizzeria in Fox Point. Our second location, and first full-service restaurant in the state, opened in Brookfield in August 2022. An additional carryout came to Greenfield in January 2021, and our fourth Dairyland location opened in Oak Creek in August 2022.

Back home in Chicagoland, we opened our highly anticipated full-service restaurant in Oakbrook Terrace in December 2020 and a Logan Square carryout location in Chicago in April 2023!

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Present Day

Throughout our first 50 years, we’ve created a special culture which focuses on relationships, people development and growth. Today, with over 3,500 employees in Chicago, Indianapolis, Milwaukee and Phoenix, Lou Malnati’s was recognized as one of the Chicago Tribune’s Top 100 Places to Work for the 13th year in a row and also voted as a National Top Workplace. Because of our devoted staff and loyal customers, we’ll be opening even more pizzerias in existing markets, and will continue to explore new markets to persuade people across the country to expand their pizza horizons to include our famous deep dish!

We’re growing our nationwide deep dish delivery through our online shipping website. That’s right, you can have our famous deep dish deposited on your doorstep overnight! Tastes of Chicago as our e-commerce business is called, features not just Lou’s but the most iconic restaurants to deliver Chicago delicacies across the country.

As you can see, we’re growing! We’re committed to working hard to provide opportunities for our team to grow along with us. We’re also going to continue to keep Lou and Jean’s spirit of generosity alive through events like our annual Cancer Research Benefit, and our Thanksgiving food basket drive.

And, most of all, we are going to continue to carry on the family tradition and provide celebrations and memorable experiences for our customers for at least another 50 years!

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