Home Run Inn: A South Side Tavern Pizza That Went Nationwide

Some Chicago foods are inventions. Home Run Inn is an accident that never stopped paying off.

In 1923, Mary and Vincent Grittani opened a small tavern at 31st Street and Kildare Avenue on the Southwest Side. It was a neighborhood corner bar in a neighborhood full of them — nothing about it hinted that the family would end up feeding the whole country.

The pizza came later. When Nick Perrino, Mary's son-in-law, returned home from the war in the early 1940s, the two of them started putting out crispy thin-crust pizza cut into squares at the bar as a free snack to go with a cold drink. It was built on the family's old recipe from Bari, Italy: hand-pinched crust, zesty sauce, and a serious amount of cheese. Customers started coming in for the pizza more than the beer. That snack became the business.

The name is an accident too. In 1947, a baseball from a game at the neighborhood park came through the tavern's front window. Home Run Inn. Chicago names things the way things happen.

The frozen pizza chapter started with a customer. A Wisconsin regular kept asking for his pizza only partially baked so he could take it home, put it in the ice box, and finish it in his own oven. The family took the hint, began par-baking pizzas, freezing them, and dropping them off at corner grocery stores. That made Home Run Inn one of the true pioneers of frozen pizza in America — decades before the freezer aisle looked like it does now.

Demand kept climbing. In 1987 the family built its first USDA plant right behind the original restaurant and opened a second pizzeria in Darien. In 1996 a 60,000-square-foot plant in Woodridge added two production lines. By 2003 they had direct store delivery running across the Midwest, and between 2004 and 2017 six more Chicagoland restaurants opened — Hillside, Melrose Park, Bolingbrook, Berwyn, Garfield Ridge, and Beverly. A Midway Airport location followed in 2018.

Joe Perrino, who grew up in the house attached to the original tavern, became CEO at 37 and pushed the frozen business from a local favorite to a national brand before he passed away in 2018. His values — family, pride, grit, courage — still get quoted around the company.

The original 1920s location reopened in 2019 after a three-year renovation. A ninth pizzeria opened in Bronzeville the same year, and in 2020 Home Run Inn opened two branded stands inside Wrigley Field. Also in 2020, the fourth generation of the family stepped in. By 2022, distribution went nationwide.

What makes it taste like Chicago is the crust. Home Run Inn is tavern-style, not deep dish: thin, crisp, sturdy enough to hold sauce and cheese without folding, and cut into squares — the party cut. It is the pizza a South Side kitchen table actually eats on a Friday night.

We ship the frozen pies from the ChiGrub store: the Classic Cheese Pizza, the Ultra Thin Crust Sausage, and the Ultra Thin Crust Pepperoni. All frozen items go out Monday and Tuesday so they arrive cold and in shape.

Bake it straight from frozen on a rack, no thawing. Give the oven a full preheat. When the cheese browns at the edges and the bottom sounds hollow if you tap it, you got it right.

Q: When was Home Run Inn founded?

A: The original tavern opened in 1923 at 31st and Kildare on Chicago's Southwest Side, and the pizza recipe took hold in the early 1940s.

Q: Is Home Run Inn deep dish or tavern-style?

A: Tavern-style — a thin, crispy, hand-pinched crust cut into squares, which is the everyday pizza most Chicagoans actually grew up on.

Q: Why is it called Home Run Inn?

A: In 1947 a baseball from a neighborhood game crashed through the tavern's front window, and the name stuck.

Q: Can I get Home Run Inn pizza shipped outside Chicago?

A: Yes. ChiGrub ships Home Run Inn frozen pizzas nationwide, with frozen orders leaving Monday and Tuesday to protect quality in transit.