JoelF wrote:I worry in particular for the sausage: Italian sausage everywhere but the extended Chicago area (Milwaukee and environs seems to be within its reach, but not Indy or St Louis) seems to be awful, which accounts for sausage being the most common pizza topping here and nowhere else.

HonestMan wrote:Maggianos is just horrible now. I went to the Naperville location and it was just sad. Boring, scaled back menu, crazy prices and mediocre food.

thetrob wrote:

JoelF wrote:I worry in particular for the sausage: Italian sausage everywhere but the extended Chicago area (Milwaukee and environs seems to be within its reach, but not Indy or St Louis) seems to be awful, which accounts for sausage being the most common pizza topping here and nowhere else.

Yup. It's fair however to worry about all the ingredients. If they find a different source for the cheese, sauce, sausage, heck pretty much any of them including the flour or cornmeal for the crust, then the whole product spirals downward. Make changes to save a few cents on the cheese, or use a generic tomato sauce and it will not be Malnatis in anything but name.

Marc reassured that there are no personnel changes, no staffing changes and no changes with their famous pizza.

ronnie_suburban wrote:

Cynthia wrote:Just read that Lou Malnati's has been sold.

I think it's just that the already-existing or already-planned private equity piece has changed hands. I think you can continue to expect higher prices, along with diminishing quality and service.

nsxtasy wrote:

ronnie_suburban wrote:

Cynthia wrote:Just read that Lou Malnati's has been sold.

I think it's just that the already-existing or already-planned private equity piece has changed hands. I think you can continue to expect higher prices, along with diminishing quality and service.

The principals from the Malnati family will reportedly continue to be involved. I don't think you can make any conclusions yet about the quality. Higher prices and service issues seem to be common throughout the restaurant industry these days, due to labor and supply chain constraints.

Katie wrote:I don't understand why the private equity partnership share of ownership of a company changing hands means necessarily that prices will go up and quality will go down.

I'm seeing restaurant dine-in and carry-out prices up everywhere lately, presumably because of restaurants trying to recoup losses suffered during the covid pandemic and also having difficulty attracting and retaining employees as the covid pandemic wears on.

I don't have any firsthand experience of quality declining recently for Malnati's in particular, and I don't recall seeing any reports of it on this forum by anyone else.

Could it be that businesses sometimes rearrange their financial arrangements and it doesn't mean anything in particular for customers?

Dave148 wrote:

Marc reassured that there are no personnel changes, no staffing changes and no changes with their famous pizza.

https://flip.it/zfTyMr

nsxtasy wrote:Maybe we should give them a chance and see how it turns out, instead of wild-ass guessing.

jnm123 wrote:I think the parallel between what's going on at Malnati's and the Portillo's IPO is is more than sheer coincidence. It's two classic cases of--for the founders/owners anyway--gettin' out while the gettin's good.

jnm123 wrote:
I don't have the energy to go back to see how the Uno's expansion took place years back, but I do remember being less than enthused at the pizza quality near the Portland, Maine airport a few years ago. Good luck to both.

Sweet Willie wrote:I don't order Lou's very frequently as I just don't have pizza often. I normally enjoy sausage as the lone topping on any Lou's deep dish I get.

I decided to try their special limited time pizza, a pizza with Italian Beef, Italian Sausage, Giardiniera. I've had Italian beef/giardiniera pizzas before but only with thin crust. This thick crust version just isn't working for me as there isn't much sauce so the overall ratio is off, and most importantly the giardiniera has big chunks of carrots & cauliflower.

For me personally I realize that with giardiniera I like adding it to a pizza after it has been cooked, much like I do anchovies. Neither of these are an all the time item for me but just when the mood strikes

at chicagobusiness.com, Brandon Dupré wrote:Lou Malnati’s new CEO, Julie Younglove-Webb, has big plans for its beloved deep-dish pizzeria as she eyes a national expansion push.

Younglove-Webb, who spoke with Crain’s in an exclusive interview, said she hopes to begin opening at least 10 stores annually, with at least five by the end of her first year at the helm. That expansion, she says, will first include states where Lou Malnati’s already has a presence — such as Wisconsin and Arizona — but also adjoining states and possibly untapped markets like California and Florida, where a lot of Chicago restaurants have typically been opening outposts.

“This year will be focusing on getting ready for growth, but the ultimate goal is to become a national iconic brand with a multistate presence beyond just places where Chicagoans vacation in the winter,” she said.

There will be no menu overhauls to push the expansion, Younglove-Webb says, but instead a focus on what the company does best: making fresh pizza from scratch with high-quality ingredients. A few locations are incorporating a happy hour and rolling out Italian beef bites. If successful, they could be a model to replicate at other locations, she said.

Younglove-Webb arrives at Lou Malnati’s with more than a decade of experience overseeing corporate and restaurant operations, including for Auntie Anne’s, which is owned by GoTo Foods. She has also led operations at Domino’s and Potbelly, the latter of which she said she helped to grow from 210 restaurants up to 500 locations over her tenure — something she plans to replicate in her new position.

The Lou Malnati’s expansion, she noted, will all be corporate locations. There are no current plans to franchise the brand, a move recently taken at places such as Protein Bar and Potbelly. Done well, franchising can boost a chain's revenue quickly without a major increase in overhead costs, which are borne by franchisees.

“The culture of the company is very important, and as you build out and grow, you want to be as close to the core of the business as you can be,” she said. “That doesn't mean that 10 years from now we may franchise, but in the near term, no plans for franchising.”

ronnie_suburban wrote:Has anyone else tried the current special, The Chicago Dog Deep Dish? I couldn't help myself and gave it a whirl yesterday . . .
=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:Anyway, kind of fun and not offensive in any way. Just not as good as it could have been. And probably not worth going out of one's way for.

JoelF wrote:

ronnie_suburban wrote:Has anyone else tried the current special, The Chicago Dog Deep Dish? I couldn't help myself and gave it a whirl yesterday . . .
=R=

Hot dog pizza was a regular item when I was a kid, when pepperoni and kosher salami weren't populating our fridge, and mom was opening an Appian Way kit. No relish or mustard tho.

spinynorman99 wrote:We rented a villa in Sicily several years ago and on cook's night off we ordered pizza from the nearby town (several pizzas - we told them to give us a range of their toppings). One of the pizzas had what was clearly a local version of hot dog - and not especially good. The one lesson we learned was that mediocre food is universal.