The pizza tastes different, and Frederick said the company wants to preserve that. Some kitchen staffers have worked there for 40 years and don’t need a recipe to concoct the crust. They do not use partially baked crust to speed up cook times, like the franchises do. However, the two downtown locations are exceptions and always have been, Tristano said. The ownership changes, fast-casual spinoffs and shift away from pizza made it hard for Uno to compete in today’s restaurant environment, he said. In recent decades, the chain became less of a pizza joint and more of an “Applebee’s of Italian” food, said Darren Tristano, CEO of Chicago-based research and consulting firm Foodservice Results. The goal is to get to as many as 100 hotel locations. Three such locations are open, with 10 more expected to open by year-end, including in suburban Schiller Park, Frederick said. Its latest growth plan is to work with hotel operators to add an Uno location at their properties. The company is down to about 100 locations and operates a frozen pizza arm called Uno Foods. “It wasn’t who the brand was.”įrederick became CEO in 2020 and has been working to refocus the chain’s menu back on pizza. “They put pizza at the back of the menu as almost an afterthought,” Frederick said. By then, Spencer had moved from CEO to chairman. The chain’s parent company declared bankruptcy in 2010. The company was publicly traded for a time and reached its peak in about 2005, Frederick said. ![]() It went with a casual dining format, changed its name to Uno Chicago Grill and infiltrated the menu with nonpizza items. In the process, however, the company “got a little bit away from the pizza-joint feel,” Frederick said. He also bought the Due and Uno River North buildings from Sewell’s widow, Frederick said. He opened his first in Boston in 1979 then grew it over the next 25 years to about 250 restaurants around the world. He got Sewell’s blessing to start franchising Uno. Spencer, who was from Boston, was also smitten when he first tried the creation decades later and thought the rest of the world would be, too. Lou Malnati’s dad was a bartender there, and one of the founders of Gino’s East worked in the kitchen. Uno’s kitchen has also spawned a slew of other deep-dish establishments. They did later open a Mexican restaurant-Su Casa, which is still in business around the corner from Due and is owned by the company. Riccardo futzed with the recipe and ended up with deep dish. He scrapped the idea and turned to pizza but wanted something more substantial than the thin-crust appetizer. The story goes like this: Sewell, being from Texas, wanted to open a Mexican restaurant with partner Ric Riccardo but got sick after sampling some of the food. Though many deep-dish joints claim to be inventors of what has become known as Chicago’s signature dish, Uno’s claim is the most widely recognized by accounts and news articles. Pizzeria Due opened in 1955 a block away at 619 N. Texan Ike Sewell founded Uno in 1943, and it has been operating out of the building at 29 E. ![]() “He wanted to leave the restaurants in good hands.” “Aaron’s now 91,” said Frederick, who spoke on behalf of Spencer.
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