Lou Malnati's!

This is truly mundane and pointless, but I’m a happy man.

A client, who is based in Chicago, decided to randomly ship our whole team pizza from Lou Malnati’s. This will not be the first time I’ve had Chicago pizza shipped to me (I’ve done it from Giordano’s twice), and I’ve been thrilled both times. I expect that this will be no exception.

I’d also like to shake the hand of the person who first realized that dry ice and overnight shipping makes for getting good food into the hands of people far away.

And you ate every last slice, didn’t you?

I loves me some Lou’s, but the price is a significant barrier, plus the inability to pick toppings is a bit of a bummer.

Congratulations.

$108.99 for 6 pizzas. Little more than $18 per 9" pie. I send 6-packs, to far away family members, for Christmas. They’re even better when someone else pays for them. :smiley:

The company I work for is based out of Chicago, and I’m one of dozens of remote workers, as is Mr. Athena. Last Christmas, they shipped all of us care packages from the link doorhinge posted - Taste of Chicago.

Between the two of us, we got 2 Lou Malnati’s Cheese Pizzas, 2 Eli’s Cheesecakes, and 2 half-pound boxes of Cora Lee toffee.

When they came, we were like “OK, whatever, this is nice but no big deal.”

Then we started eating it all.

Holy shit, every single thing was amazing. The toffee was so good I ordered boxes for my whole family for Christmas. The pizzas were similarly good, and I don’t even like deep-dish pizza. Cheese cake also was great, though I did end up giving most of it away. We don’t need two entire cheesecakes between the two of us.

Highly recommended, everyone should try this stuff.

Had two slices of deep dish Lou’s sausage and mushroom with butter crust for lunch. There is a takeout LM opening soon at Harlem and Gunnison about 7 minutes from my house. Oh yeah.

I had forgotten all about Lou Malnati’s. I used to eat there when I worked in Lincolnwood in the early 70s. I’m happy to know they’re still going strong.

The first payment I ever got for web work was when I was a teenager, some guy from the Windows IRC channel had me fix a logo for him, and he sent me a Chicago deep-dish on ice. Not sure which one it was, but it was friggin fantastic. And like 20+ years ago!

Man I love Lou’s! Every Christmas my BIL sends us a package of frozen pizza. They never last more than 2 weeks. Of course now I’m on the mailing list so I keep getting catalogs of yummy Chicago food.

I’m not much for deep dish, despite being a Chicagoan, but Lou’s is my deep dish of choice! (Well, there’s Burt’s and Pequod’s, too, but there is some taxonomical difficulties in whether those pizzas are deep dish, or just pan.)

I contained myself and only ate just under half of it. I’m probably about to commit sacrilege as far as some of you are concerned, but my memory of Giordano’s puts them slightly ahead of LM’s. Which is not to say that I didn’t think Lou’s was most excellent, because it was. And I’ll be enjoying it again tonight!

Oh, and I was shown the catalog that came with the shipment, and apparently our client also ordered through Taste of Chicago.

No sacrilege. I’ve just never been a fan of stuffed pizzas and prefer the single crust deep dish to them. I put Giordano’s and similar stuffed pizzas off in their own category.

Don’t forget Home Run Inn and Uno’s.

I couldn’t eat Chicago deep dish pizza day after day.

But there are times when I think about it. :smiley:

Fnord

Is Lou feeling okay? I mean it seems like forever that I’ve been hearing about an ill Lou Malnati around here…

Ooof, just looked up “fnord”… ninja’d by QtM.

I had no idea Home Run Inn had deep dish. It appears to be a frozen-only product. Speaking of, their regular classic frozen pizza is one of the few frozen pizzas I like, which is odd, as I’m not a huge fan of their restaurant pizza. (I don’t mind it, but it’s a place I’ve been to like twice in the last ten years, and I live fairly close to the original location.)

Cheryl?? :smiley:

My sister-in-law (and my father-in-law) both formerly lived in Chicago, but now live in places where good pizza is apparently hard to find (Charlotte and South Florida, respectively). About 10 years ago, we sent both of them Lou Malnati pizzas as Christmas presents, and we were told, “you can just keep sending those every year, and we’ll be ecstatic!”

I remember people talking about Uno’s (and Gino’s East) when I did my two-month stint in Chicago. I don’t recall ever hearing of Home Run Inn.

But I am open to receiving free Chicago deep dish from all of the above. :smiley:

Home Run Inn was more of a south-side tradition (the original location was on 31st Street); they now have several restaurants in the city and suburbs. They’re known for their thin-crust pizza (and that’s the only type that they have in the restaurants), though, as pulykamell notes, they sell deep-dish frozen pizza in supermarkets.

Here’s a video about them. They are not known for deep dishes pizzas, as that is not what they do (except for, apparently, frozen ones.) I live a couple miles from the 31st Street location, and do have a crust that is quite distinct from most other pizzas. It’s a bit denser or more rigid than a normal thin crust, while still thin, and I would describe it as “buttery” (although apparently, from what I’ve been able to find, it’s corn oil). The texture and flavor are definitely different than any other pizza I’ve had in the city. I remember a few years back they ended up being Chicagos #1 pizza on some Rachel Ray show. They are an iconic brand on the South Side of Chicago.

The big Chicago deep dish brands/chains are Malnati’s, Uno’s, and Gino’s with Giordano’s and Edwardo’s (much better than Girordano’s, IMHO) for the stuffed variety.