The Great Topperstix Evacuation: All Chicago Toppers Have Closed
By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Mar 7, 2017 7:01PM
Toppers has closed all of its Chicago locations and no one seems to know why. Or even when, exactly. But we checked their map and it's true—every single Chicago location has been removed. In fact the chain appears to have completely retreated across the Illinois state line.
A neighbor of the Wicker Park Toppers that was shuttered told DNAinfo the location closed a week ago. And no one really noticed until now!
This could be because the thing Toppers was best known for was its late night delivery. So perhaps the drunks that couldn't get through to order pizza and Topperstix—Toppers' famous cheesy "breadsticks"—didn't remember the never got their food the next morning.
Or perhaps the Wisconsin-based business realized that they just couldn't fight Chicago pizza on its home turf. Being so far away from Spotted Cow, squeaky cheese and summer sausage may have just weakened the Toppers outposts too greatly.
Or maybe it was all just a dream.
We've reached out to Toppers for comment and will update this post as we learn any more valuable news about this almost completely unnoticed tragedy.
UPDATE: We have answers! Scott Gittrich, founder and president of Toppers Pizza, sent us this statement:
We recently made the tough decision to close the four corporate-owned Toppers Pizza stores in the state of Illinois including locations in the South Loop, West Loop, Wrigleyville and DeKalb. Additionally, our franchise partner decided to close the one franchisee-owned Toppers Pizza located in Bucktown. We are extremely grateful for the fine Toppers Pizza team members who embodied our core values and culture. We have spoken with all of them and let them know about opportunities to continue their Toppers journey at any of our other locations. Toppers Pizza will be back in Illinois under the right circumstances and with the right franchisee partners in the future, but we are restructuring in order to focus our growth efforts in other states. It has been an honor to serve our Toppers fanatics in Illinois and we are proud of the quality pizza experience we've been able to share. Until next time, "Never Settle" for crappy pizza, Illinois!
Don't worry, Mr. Gittrich, Chicago will never settle for crappy pizza.