A family, a pan,
and a long night.

Why Chicago, in Texas

Because a Chicago pie is the most generous thing you can put in front of people. It is heavy, it is shared, and it takes long enough to make that sitting down is part of the deal. We wanted a room where a family could order one pie, one pasta and a salad and walk out full for less than the cost of a chain delivery.

Everything else on the menu grew out of the neighborhood asking for it. The pasta came first, and it is now a quarter of everything we sell. The wings came next and immediately started showing up in reviews. The Indian line, the butter chicken and tikka pizzas, came from our own kitchen at home.

The badge on the box

The mark on our boxes is a deep dish pan seen from above: two handles, a cream field, a red C and a gold flame inside it. It is the pan itself. Every Chicago pie in this restaurant comes out of one, and the mark is there so you know before you open the box whose kitchen it came from.

How the kitchen runs

Dough is made here. Sauce is made here. The pasta is cooked to order, not held. The dessert case, the tiramisu, the tres leches, the banana pudding, is all made in this building by hand. The whole kitchen is halal, which means there is no second line, no separate fryer and nothing to keep apart.

We stay open until 4 AM because the people who work the shifts nobody else wants still have to eat. Hospital staff, drivers, airport crews, students. That is who is here at three in the morning, and the kitchen is fully on for them.