When Joseph Aurelio Jr. opened the doors to his four-table Italian eatery in August 1959 on Ridge Road in Homewood, his dream was to specialize in serving the thin-crust pizza made from recipes that have been in the Aurelio family for generations.
This year Joe Jr.’s son, Joe Aurelio, who is now the company’s CEO, is celebrating the family’s 65 years of making authentic, thin-crust pies, contributing to the community, and adding personal touches to customers’ dining out experiences that are fun as well as delicious.
Aurelio plans to celebrate that milestone in a big way, with a year of special events and giveaways honoring his father’s vision and success. Among the customer prizes on tap for the anniversary are tickets to music and sports events, special pricing on select nights, and a couple of tours through Two Brothers in Warrenville, the brewery that created a private label Italian-style pilsner just for the occasion that is available in the Illinois and Indiana outlets.
“We were able to pick the hops and flavors for the beer and we’ve already sold a couple of barrels of it in the last few weeks,” Aurelio said.
“Our official anniversary is Aug. 20, and October is National Pizza Month,” Aurelio said. “We will be giving away tickets to Bulls, White Sox, Cubs, and Bears games. We also bought personal pizza pouches and little pizza cutters to give to the customers.”
But the biggest buzz is expected to come from summer giveaways Aurelio arranged with Cumulus Media, parent to WLS 890AM, 94.7FM, and Q101. Every Tuesday and Thursday throughout the summer, radio personalities will park their mobile studios at various Aurelio’s locations to give away a pair of tickets to one of 33 big-name events that include a Billie Eilish concert at the United Center, Green Day and Smashing Pumpkins at Wrigley Field, and Lollapalooza at Grant Park. Aurelio said he is getting the word out through Facebook, Instagram, and Aurelio’s website and that the celebration will be going on in all Aurelio stores across the country.
Sixty-five years is a long time for any restaurant to stay in business, and for Aurelio’s, that success is directly linked to Joe’s belief that a restaurant is all about fresh ingredients, authentic recipes, and relationships. From the day he opened the doors to his tiny eatery, Joe was determined to make everyone feel like part of family when they sat down to eat his food. At first, his biggest draw was the Italian beef sandwich because pizza was still a novelty in America, but Joe was determined to change that.
He offered free samples of his pizza to diners who were there for the Italian beef on the premise that a taste of his pizza would win them over. He was right. By 1961, pizza had caught on, and Joe’s fledgling business rode the trend. In 1974, 15 years after he opened his first restaurant, Joe became the first pizzeria owner to franchise, a move that has grown to 37 Aurelio’s locations in five states.
In 1977 Aurelio’s pizza, hospitality and Joe’s signature “Tell ‘em Joe Sent Me” mantra had won over so many customers that he needed to expand. It was then that he bought an empty, 10,000-square-foot warehouse on Harwood Avenue and transformed it into what is now the “largest pizzeria in the world,” a 650-seat eatery that somehow feels intimate despite its size.
It’s not easy to make a cavernous interior seem homey, but Joe was able to achieve that vibe by filling every nook and cranny of his new space with artifacts and stained-glass panels picked up from estate sales and churches, vintage advertising posters and fixtures, photos and autographed sports jerseys, and photos of celebrities who visited the store (including Sen. Joseph Biden in 1979).
Joe also believed in supporting sports teams from local schools, churches, and synagogues and he created wall displays using team plaques he received to thank him for his contributions. He said his sister Sue Aurelio has taken over the role of sorting through the dozens of weekly requests for sponsorship and facilitating them when possible.
The restaurant’s well-known “baby wall” was born when Joe started giving onesies printed with the Aurelio’s shield to pregnant customers and new parents, asking only for photos of the kids wearing the garment in return. Today several restaurant walls are covered with collages made from more than 5,000 photos of babies wearing Aurelio onesies and the youngest child included in the collages is now 48.
When it came to pizza, Joe strongly believed in authenticity and quality. He rejected mass market shortcuts and insisted on sticking to original recipes prepared by hand in his kitchens. To this day, the younger Aurelio is carrying on his dad’s traditions, starting with keeping the food fresh, handmade, and authentic at all of Aurelio’s locations.
“All the recipes from the meatballs to the sauce for our pizzas came from our family in Italy,” Aurelio said. “Our little niche in the pizza market is that we make our dough fresh every day. Three times a week, we grind 15,000 pounds of our own sausage with our own seasoning in our Mokena warehouse factory. Our sauce is my grandma’s recipe, and our cheese is 100% mozzarella put through a special process of extracting sugar from the cheese so it stays golden and doesn’t burn when the pizza is baked. We haven’t changed our recipes since the day we opened.”
In the current dining climate of fast food, processed meats, synthetic cheese, and Door Dash, Aurelio’s stands apart as a place where diners can mingle, savor authentic Italian food, and feel as at-home as they would at their grandma’s Sunday table.
To register for Aurelio’s 65th anniversary celebration’s giveaways, visit the website. One registration qualifies customers for all the giveaways.
