After years of selling their thin-crust pies with varying degrees of success at Guy’s Pizza, Italian-born Nancy and Rocco Palese decided to change things up. Rocco traveled back home to Italy to get a long-held family recipe for an Easter pie called scarciedda. He wasn't trying to add the pastry to the menu, rather, he had the idea of creating a pizza modeled after the scarciedda.

The resulting product was a stuffed pizza—gooey cheese, marinara sauce, and toppings galore tucked into a pizza crust—and they soon introduced their creation at a new venture, Nancy's Pizza. In the decades since its opening, the eatery has won handfuls of awards, including Best Stuffed Pizza by Chicago magazine.

When they're not crafting stuffed or original thin-crust pizzas, the pizzeria’s chefs can be found doing jazz hands and cooking platefuls of creamy fettuccine alfredo and Italian-influenced sandwiches stuffed with roasted Italian beef and melted mozzarella cheese.