Pizza in Hanover Park

True Italian meals require the entire family. So to make corralling kin easier, Sir Nick's Pizza prepares and delivers their Italian and American dishes straight to dining rooms. The chefs can stock deliveries with grinders topped with meatballs, family-sized portions of meat ravioli, and the house's pizzas. They customize pies with up to three ingredients, or serve specialty varieties such as the SOB with sausage, onion, and bacon atop a barbecue sauce. Chefs also fry a range of vegetables into dippable appetizers, creating fried potato skins, breaded mushrooms, and jalapeno poppers. They cap off their primary fare by making traditional Italian desserts such as cannoli or American favorites such as chocolate chip cheesecake—the first dessert to be argued over on the moon.

Cousins Pizza Pub boasts a menu of specialty pizzas padded with sandwiches and salads. Appetizers such as fried zucchini ($6) and mini tacos ($6.25) introduce pizzas founded on a range of crusts including thin, double-dough, pan, and stuffed. The cheeseburger pizza protects its cargo from roving Hamburglars by offering a pizza disguise to beef, american cheese, mayo, lettuce, and tomato ($16.50–$24), and chicken alfredo pizza tops pies with grilled chicken and a cream sauce usually reserved for flavoring pastas and styling angel hair ($13.50–$20). The strip steak sandwich also offers an alternative delivery system for a forkable classic accented by onions and a choice of american, mozzarella, or swiss cheeses ($9.50), and the Julienne salad mingles turkey and ham with cheese and hard-boiled egg ($7.25).

At six locations dispersed throughout the Chicago suburbs, Old Town Pizza Co.'s dough doyens handcraft an array of Italian edibles, including four styles of pizza—signature thin crust, double dough crimped with a hand-rolled edge, Chicago-style deep dish, and Sicilian-style stuffed pizza. Specialty pies, which comes in such varieties as the Florentine and The Butcher Block, arrive adorned with fresh spinach and spices or a choice of four meats. Chefs also tempt carb cravers with pastas, calzones, and sandwiches, including italian beef.

Nicodino's Pizza Co. & Café bridges the culinary gap between sweet and savory with a multipronged menu that couples sizzling pizzas with piping-hot café drinks, as well as cataloging gluten-free pizza and pasta. Fresh toppings adorn hand-tossed pizzas and run the gamut from succulent meats, such as italian beef and roasted chicken, to veggies, including green peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, and jalapeños. The kitchen doesn’t restrict itself to making pizzas, though; chefs also grill chicken-pesto paninis and bake spinach calzones and mostaccioli. To complement the savory food, the café side of the eatery presents offerings such as mango smoothies and tiramisu. When it’s warm, Nicodino's Pizza Co. & Café invites guests to an outdoor seating area. In addition, the restaurant offers catering for those throwing a dinner party or a pizza-themed wedding in which all the toasts are cheesy and made with marinara sauce.

Pizzeria Antica serves up a menu of made-to-order pizzas, each prepared with fresh ingredients and premium italian cheeses. Muffle the moans of rapacious stomach-sirens with an order of bruschetta crowned with tomato, basil, and a drizzling of extra virgin olive oil ($4.75), before diving into the restaurant's array of specialty thin-crust pizzas ($12.95–$19.95). The Barese pizza adorns chop canvases with the colorful flavors of prosciutto di parma and panna, along with fresh ground pepper, shaved parmesan, and arugula, while Nemos of nourishment can submerge themselves in the Antico pizza, a spherical serving of tuna and capers frolicking in a cheesy pasture of mushrooms and onions. Build-your-own-pizza options are also available ($8.95–$14.95; $1–$2.50 per topping), as well as starch-surrounded fare such as the meatball sandwich or the italian beef sandwich ($4.95 for small, $6.45 for large).

The dough wizards at Papa John's hand toss circular masterpieces with original and thin crusts made from high-protein flour to support warm bouquets of toppings. Hand-cut produce crowns all of Papa John's pizzas, mingling with the sun-soaked sweetness of sauce made from fresh, California-grown tomatoes. By adhering to its brand promise of "better ingredients, better pizza," Papa John's grew from a back-tavern pizzeria into more than 3,500 restaurants within three decades' time, or the amount of time it takes to grow a single pizzeria from a small seed.