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home run inn family pizza story or frozen pizza empire?

Tony_Hothead

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Joined
Sep 15, 2025
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Caught a piece about Home Run Inn's 75th anniversary, and while the "family-owned success story" angle is nice, the numbers made me raise an eyebrow. They're pumping out 100,000 frozen pizzas a day now. That's not a mom-and-pop shop vibe anymore, that's a factory line.

Cool trivia that they used to give pizza away for free at the bar like peanuts, but let's be honest... frozen pies at that scale aren't what most of us here are aiming to replicate in our ovens. Still, I'm curious... anyone in Chicago had their restaurant pizza recently? Does it still hold up, or has the frozen empire watered down the original?
 
My cousin lives close to the original Home Run Inn on 31st, and we went there last summer when I visited Chicago. I tried the 1947 sausage pizza and it was really good! It's got crispy crust, tasty sauce and cheese, and much better than the frozen kind. You can tell they put more care into the restaurant version. If you're nearby, it's worth checking out.
 
Caught a piece about Home Run Inn's 75th anniversary, and while the "family-owned success story" angle is nice, the numbers made me raise an eyebrow. They're pumping out 100,000 frozen pizzas a day now. That's not a mom-and-pop shop vibe anymore, that's a factory line.

Cool trivia that they used to give pizza away for free at the bar like peanuts, but let's be honest... frozen pies at that scale aren't what most of us here are aiming to replicate in our ovens. Still, I'm curious... anyone in Chicago had their restaurant pizza recently? Does it still hold up, or has the frozen empire watered down the original?
yeah, I get your point, but a family owned doesn't mean they have to stay small. It means the family still calls the shots, not some big corporate board.
They've found a way to take a good product to a huge scale, and that's a different kind of success story. I've had their restaurant pizza recently, and it's still solid
 
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