Column: ‘Deep Dish' tells the stories behind the Malnati pizza empire, including some difficult ones

Yahoo

04-06-2025

CHICAGO — I have known many of the people involved in the business of making pizzas and arguing about pizzas and eating pizzas, but until a few weeks ago, I had not met Marc Malnati, who is one of the towering figures of the local pizza scene.
I met him on the 200-some pages of his book titled 'Deep Dish: Inside the First 50 Years of Lou Malnati's Pizza' (Agate Publishing). It is a surprising book in that it has a welcome lack of recipes but also because it is self-aware and, frankly, occasionally chilling, as Malnati writes, 'Too often, my little brother and I would end up falling asleep in a booth in the bar while (Dad) told (Mom) he was going to have just one more.'
That dad, Lou, was the big-dreaming patriarch of the family enterprise that now offers pizzas in places across the country, a rather remarkable business success, especially given its modest roots. That mom, Jean, is the person responsible for holding the business together when Lou died at 48.
The story is ultimately an entertaining one. As Malnati's younger brother, Rick, puts it in a short preface, 'This is not a story about great pizza, although we do serve the best pizza in the world. This is the story about how a somewhat dysfunctional family led to the growth of a more functional family.'
Marc tells me that he has always been attracted to writing and that this book, his first, came to life because 'I wanted to tell the story so our grandchildren (there are seven with one on the way) and their grandchildren would know the stories behind the pizzas on their dinner tables.'
Those stories start with Lou, who was, Marc writes, 'color TV when the rest of the world was still in black and white.' Sounds fun, yes? Not exactly, except for those who frequented his restaurants to share boozy banter.
Lou came here as a baby in 1930 and first saw his father, Adolpho, working as a bartender. He was taken back to Italy but returned for keeps in 1947, joined the Marines and then worked with his father at a new restaurant called Pizzeria Uno, started by restaurateurs Ric Riccardo and Ike Sewell. He met and married a secretary named Jean Noll and, after Sewell refused to make him a partner in the restaurant business, quit and opened the first Malnati's in Lincolnwood on March 17, 1971, with Chicago Bear Dick Butkus and other celeb pals in attendance.
Those first years were tough, but were getting better when all nearly came crashing down when Lou died of cancer in 1978. Rick was still in high school, and Marc, a 22-year-old fresh from Indiana University, where he had earned a degree in business, found God and met his future wife, a coed named Jeanne Louise Murphy.
Though he was an occasional user of stronger stuff, he was innocent enough to ask her out on a date to an ice cream parlor for a milkshake. She said no, but eventually they did date, have five kids and, as he writes in the book's dedication, 'My eyes continue to sparkle for you, even after 45 years.'
The book moves swiftly. Yes, it covers a few missteps, but also great successes and some wild times at ChicagoFest and Taste of Chicago. Credit is given to many loyal employees, many of whom started as kids, for the development of business practices and self-help therapies, all presented as stories rather than lessons.
In the book's acknowledgements, he thanks many people, including 'hundreds of all-star individuals who gave the best years of their lives to build the culture of our company.' He thanks Richard Babcock, 'who worked tirelessly to smooth out the rough edges. I didn't make it easy on him.'
Babcock, a native of Woodstock, Illinois, was an editor for some years at New York magazine before editing Chicago magazine for decades. He is married to writer wife Gioia Diliberto, whose latest book is 'Firebrands: The Untold Story of Four Women Who Made and Unmade Prohibition' (University of Chicago Press).
He still writes and edits. His latest novel, 'Absolution,' will be published this summer, and I asked him what it was like to work with Malnati. In his typically cheerful manner, he told me, 'Working with Marc was a delight. He knew the story he wanted to tell, and he was remarkably candid about his childhood and the excesses of his father. I know it wasn't easy coming clean on all that. Also, I don't think many people know of Marc's unusual management style — a system that obviously worked very effectively as he grew a local business into a national company. Finally, for a small, additional editing chore, he paid me in frozen pizzas — best deal I ever made.'
Malnati is a thoughtful guy. If he seems to lack the boozy ebullience of his father, that's understandable. A religious man and self-aware, he loves his wife, he loves his kids, his employees and his mom.
'I am very grateful for the life I have had,' he says.
He's sentimental too. As he writes, after sending the book off to his publisher, his wife and kids 'surprised me by sitting me down and opening a bottle of Caymus Cabernet, my favorite.'
Then each read a favorite passage from the book and told him why they had chosen it. 'I cried all the way through,' he writes. 'And told them it was the greatest day of my life.'