An Evanston street corner with a flag and a glass office building. Photo: Eric Fredericks from Rancho Cordova, CA, United States / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
Evanston already has more than a dozen places to buy a pie, from Chicago deep-dish names like Lou Malnati’s and Giordano’s to neighborhood shops. Three newcomers with very different approaches are now lined up to join them.
Bake425 returns to two old addresses
Bake425 sells take-and-bake pizzas and plans to reopen two storefronts, on Central Street and on Chicago Avenue, that went dark when HomeMade Pizza Co. left. The company says it uses local and organic ingredients, grows herbs on an in-store living wall, makes its own mozzarella and cultures its own yeast. The owner developed recipes in an Evanston test kitchen and opened a first shop in Highland Park last month, and has indicated that prices will stay roughly where HomeMade’s were.
Blaze on Sherman Avenue
Blaze Pizza, a California-based franchise with about 250 shops nationwide, works on an assembly-line model: customers pick toppings as the pizza moves down the counter, and it goes into a very hot oven. Owner Adam Cummins told the city’s Site Plan and Appearance Review Committee that an individual 11-inch pie takes six to seven minutes and costs under $8. Online ordering is planned, delivery is not, and the owners hope to add a sidewalk café at the Sherman Avenue location down the road.
A Neapolitan option in Sherman Plaza
800 Degrees Neapolitan Pizzeria is aiming for the long-empty Church Street space in Sherman Plaza. Neapolitan pizza follows a narrow formula: a thin crust of flour, salt, water and yeast, a sauce of crushed tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and olive oil. The restaurant bakes each pie in about a minute. It is a small chain, with three locations in the Los Angeles area and two in Las Vegas.
The three concepts overlap less than they might seem. Bake425 targets the family dinner at home, Blaze the quick lunch, and 800 Degrees the diner who wants a traditional product.
No opening dates were announced for any of the three.
The arrivals also show how the restaurant market keeps turning over. Sherman Plaza’s Church Street storefront had sat empty for a long stretch, and the take-and-bake spots on Central Street and Chicago Avenue had been without a pizza tenant since HomeMade left. For residents, the practical effect would be more choices at lunch and weeknight dinner, and for landlords, three filled storefronts.
Sources: company materials from Bake425, Blaze Pizza and 800 Degrees; Evanston Site Plan and Appearance Review Committee.
Rachel Lindqvist covers community life, the lakefront, dining and the arts for The Evanston Edge.
