Weekend Diversion: Night Of The Ponies
Pedway, First Store Open At Block 37
Around Town
Red-Light Cameras Not So Special?
What do Brooke Shields, Grant Achatz and this Chicagoist mama have in common? All three have a professed love for the convenience and taste of HomeMade Pizza Company.
HomeMade Pizza Co. sells uncooked pizzas that you then take home and pop in the oven. Twelve minutes later, you’ve got a fresh-tasting, thin-crust dinner. Voila! June Cleaver has nothing on you.
Menu options include funky, artisanal options like goat cheese and herbs or a combo of ricotta, poblanos and chicken sausage, but you can always create your own pie from their list of over forty toppings. Prices are a bit steep and start at $9.75 for a bare-bones pie to $16.75 for their more involved pizzas. Health-conscious diners can choose a whole-wheat crust; localvore fans can take heart in their commitment to 
using Wisconsin cheeses. They even let your picky eater select their own topping for a mini-pie ($5.75), and offer a party package ($39.95) for five little ones (or you and your friends) to create their own pizzas, complete with all ingredients as well as hats and chef’s aprons. We tried their BLT pizza and were impressed with how well their crunchy, salty, generous bacon slices combined with their baby spinach and chunky garlic. We also got suckered into buying their massive chocolate chip cookie, which ideally cooks in the oven as you eat your pizza. It wasn’t anything special, but a hot cookie straight from the oven is sometimes as good as it gets. For the pizza and the cookie, remember to remove the cardboard and plastic wrapping but not the parchment, and stick that bad boy right on your oven rack.
Now, we’re not saying that this place has the best pie in Chicago (we heart you, Art of Pizza!); it’s certainly not the heavy, thick pizza that most of us crave, and some of our friends claim there's a quality difference between locations (five in Chicago, more in the surrounding area and Minnesota). We loved our pie for its fresh ingredients and the convenience of a twelve-minute meal that actually tastes like it took longer. When our other options are an hour-long wait until delivery, time-intensive cooking from scratch, or subjecting other diners to our wailing wonder, HomeMade Pizza Company seems to be the perfect solution to feeding a family with a cranky toddler.
Check their website for a location close to you; we visited the store at 3430 N. Southport.
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For $0.99 per pound, you can get fresh pizza dough at Trader Joe's. I top it with spaghetti sauce and cheese as well as whatever happens to be in the fridge that looks good. Much cheaper, and almost as easy - maybe easier, because you don't have to deal with parking on Southport.
Guest 1
What are you trying to say buster?
Are you trying to say "eat in and keep your cranky toddler at home"?
Spook--
Actually, since HomeMade Pizza company is strictly carry out, I think Guest 1 is saying the opposite: bring your crying filthy-pawed kids to the already-absurdly-crowded aisles of Trader Joes so they can get in the way of patrons' shopping carts, spread their germs in the cauldrons of contagion that pass for "free tastes," and run around wildly until they knock down a pyramid of Two-Buck-Chuck.
Parents--please choose the HomeMade Pizza option so I can shop in peace.
Trader Joe's isn't even that good of a store -- I don't get all the love for it. And their pizza dough doesn't make a pizza that's anywhere near comparable to Homemade Pizza Co. I'll stick with the professionals..
16.75 ain't bad for gormet pizza. They need one of these bad boys in logan square.
Boycott Justin Sonwack for pointless censurship!
First, the pizza is pretty good for the cost and is a very easy last minute meal.
Second, to the person who posted "bring your crying filthy-pawed kids to the already-absurdly-crowded aisles of Trader Joes so they can get in the way of patrons' shopping carts, spread their germs in the cauldrons of contagion that pass for "free tastes," and run around wildly until they knock down a pyramid of Two-Buck-Chuck", I think you need to see a therapist about your issues. You too were a child at one point, be patient with parents who have to raise them.
As an added bonus, if you are entertaining with a toddler Homemade Pizza provides a well timed, easy to make (and easier to clean up), entree with premiere ingredients! It's a staple at our Super Bowl and Oscar parties for meat lovers and vegetarians alike. Good recommendation baby on board!
guest 7 - "who have to raise them" - what, were they forced to get knocked up?
Oh come on guest 8! the only thing that can be determined by Guest Seven's post is that she/he needs to get a agent cause that sh*t was funny!
But as I belive in being honest, my bad I read the post fully I would not have commented on it
So I will cede this post and homemade Pizza to yall
ta ta
is this an ad or a review? can't tell, other than either way, the writing sounds like something from a high school newspaper.
$16.75 for a pizza for kids? Kids who will pick the cheese off and lick the tomato sauce, then put the crust back on their plate? That seems a bit much for people who really don't care about gourmet quality. I say spend a buck fifty on a Totinos and put the rest in their college fund.
it's good pizza i just wished they baked it for you. i'm so hungry
HomeMade Pizza is delicious, but they are silly over there. Every time we call for delivery (yes, they deliver too!), they tell us it'll be 45-60 minutes, and then they show up in 20-30. That's better than the other way around, but still. Every. Single. Time.
Andersonville location opening soon! I can't wait to try it, though Ranalli's a few hundred feet away probably has a better pie.
$16.75 for a pizza for kids? Kids who will pick the cheese off and lick the tomato sauce, then put the crust back on their plate? That seems a bit much for people who really don't care about gourmet quality. I say spend a buck fifty on a Totinos and put the rest in their college fund.
Amen, number 12. Amen.
excuse me yall
Allow me to make up for my first un warranted intrusion on this totally appropriate Baby on Board Post, but dealing with Guest 12 and Guest 16
Yea let me handle this!
Hello….McFry!
Do not make fun of this post!
Like Guest 3 said, Babies who get take out from Home Made Pizza Co are not disturbing any one!
And as far as the Pizza being too expensive for babies to eat. Get a clue.Clearly the writer’s audience is for babies blessed enough to be from
two parent upper middle class households
that live in select neighborhoods on the northside and the western suburbs. I will not use any more adjectives to describe these house holds lease it be conscrewed as playing the race card
So save you snide comments for some other post!
Spook, you are fuckin retarded.
Oh come on! What did I do this time?
I'm on your side 18!
I thought this article was about pizza with babies used for toppings.
oh well.
I've been an infrequent customer of theirs for a long time. It's fine. But, you know, pizza dough is insanely easy to make, vegetables are pretty easy to chop, and the pepperoni that Paulina Meat Market makes is better than most. And it ain't no $9.75, let alone $16.75. (Or even 99c for dough.)
They did get me to use parchment paper instead of a pizza stone for baking the pizza, though. (I keep the stone in there to stabilize the oven temperature, though.) I hate crisp crust, and the parchment paper ensures a good foldable crust.