Pizzeria Uno

The History

In 1943, at the height of World War II, two unlikely partners opened a small pizzeria at 29 E Ohio Street in Chicago's River North neighborhood. Ike Sewell, a former University of Texas football star who had become a successful businessman, partnered with Ric Riccardo, an Italian-born restaurateur who already ran a popular Italian restaurant nearby. Together, they developed something that had never existed before: a pizza built in a deep, round pan with a thick, buttery crust pressed up the sides, layered with mozzarella cheese, Italian sausage, and chunky tomato sauce poured over the top — the entire construction inverted from traditional thin-crust pizza.

The origin of the actual recipe remains one of Chicago's great culinary debates. Sewell and Riccardo have traditionally received the credit, but many food historians believe the true creator was Rudy Malnati Sr., the restaurant's original pizza chef. Malnati was the hands-on pizzaiolo who shaped the dough, developed the technique, and refined the recipe into the form that would become legendary. His son, Lou Malnati, would later open his own deep-dish empire. Regardless of who kneaded the first dough, the result was revolutionary. Lines formed at 29 E Ohio Street almost immediately, and they have never stopped.

The demand was so overwhelming that in 1955, Sewell opened Pizzeria Due just one block away at 619 N Wabash Avenue to handle the overflow. Both locations served the same deep-dish recipe, and both drew crowds. Over the decades, the Uno brand expanded into a national chain — Uno Pizzeria & Grill — with locations across the country. But the original restaurant at 29 E Ohio Street remained a standalone operation, separate from the chain, serving the same style of deep-dish pizza in the same building where it was invented over eight decades ago.

What Made It Famous

Pizzeria Uno is the birthplace of Chicago deep-dish pizza, and that single fact places it among the most important restaurants in American food history. Before 1943, pizza in America was thin, flat, and largely confined to Italian immigrant communities in New York and the East Coast. What Sewell, Riccardo, and Malnati created at 29 E Ohio Street was something fundamentally different: a substantial, knife-and-fork meal that reimagined pizza as a rich, deeply satisfying dish rather than a quick, handheld slice. The thick buttery crust, the layers of cheese and meat, and the chunky tomato sauce on top became the defining characteristics of an entirely new regional cuisine.

The cultural impact was enormous. Deep-dish pizza became synonymous with Chicago itself, as central to the city's identity as the skyline or the Cubs. It launched a fierce and enduring rivalry with New York-style thin crust that has become one of America's great food debates. It inspired generations of pizzerias across Chicago — Lou Malnati's, Giordano's, Gino's East — each putting their own spin on the deep-dish format that originated at Uno. The building at 29 E Ohio Street is essentially a culinary landmark, as significant to American food history as any restaurant in the country.

For tourists visiting Chicago, Pizzeria Uno remains a pilgrimage site. The wait times are legendary — 45 minutes to an hour and a half on busy nights — and the dining room is small and packed. Locals often quietly steer visitors to Pizzeria Due next door, which serves the same pizza with shorter lines. But there is something irreplaceable about eating deep-dish in the exact room where it was invented, surrounded by the photos and memorabilia of eight decades of pizza history. The original Uno is not a chain outpost. It is the source.

Key Facts

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