Build your pizzeria website in Chicago
A Chicago pizzeria lives on its neighborhood, not on tourists. A website lets the people in your few square miles order the tavern-cut pie they grew up on straight from you, and keeps the commission on a customer who already knew your name.
Two Chicago pizzas, one real business
The world thinks of Chicago as deep dish, and deep dish does have its birthplace here: Pizzeria Uno on East Ohio Street in River North, in 1943. But ask a Chicagoan what they order on a weeknight and the answer is thin crust, cracker-crisp, cut into squares. That tavern style grew up in the corner bars of the 1940s; Vito & Nick’s in Ashburn and Home Run Inn in South Lawndale are among the places that claim it.
Between those two poles are the pan pizzas with a caramelized cheese edge, like Pequod’s in Lincoln Park, and a newer generation of naturally leavened pies in Logan Square and Wicker Park. Your site is where you tell people which Chicago pizza you make, and why yours is worth the trip.
The app that started here
Grubhub was founded in Chicago, and the habit of opening an app for dinner runs deep on the North Side. DoorDash and Uber Eats are just as present. That is convenient for customers and expensive for you: every order a regular places through a platform carries a commission, and the platform, not you, keeps their contact.
On the Southwest Side and the bungalow belt the habit is older. People still call the number on the box, or pull up for carryout on the way home. A site serves both kinds of customer. It gives the app crowd a direct order button that is just as easy, and gives the phone crowd a page with your number, hours and menu that is never out of date.
Winter is your season
When the wind comes off the lake and the side streets are buried, walk-in traffic falls and delivery climbs. That is when platform fees bite hardest, because it is when you are busiest. Customers who have your site bookmarked, or who got your email about the snow-day special, order directly. Those who don’t default to whatever the app shows them first.
Spend the summer building that list: a link on every box, a line on the receipt, a sign by the register. By January, the regulars who matter will already be ordering from you, not through someone else.