The history of the original Il Forno Pizzeria & Restaurant in the West Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago.

In 1953 Bruno Pupolo had the foresight to offer Chicago a relatively new concept. A family Italian restaurant where pizza was made with daily homemade dough, Italian sausage, and fresh vegetables that were shopped for every morning. 

But the pièce de résistance was Bruno's pizza sauce recipe! The jukebox, a song for a dime or three for a quarter, always seemed to be playing. We lived 1 block away, so we ate at II Forno's often. Their pasta sauce fine-tuned my young pallet and began my love affair with Italian food. 

Pupolo decided to name the restaurant "Il Forno" (Italian "The Oven")

A photograph of an Il Forno 21" thin crust pizza cut tavern-style.

An example of a traditionally cut tavern-style thin-crust pizza.

Later that year, Bruno's son-in-law, Lou Bonelli, and his mother-in-law, Philomena Tancredi, purchased Il Forno restaurant at 2842 West Devon Avenue in Chicago's West Ridge community in the West Rogers Park neighborhood.

Chicago Tribune Help Wanted Ad, October 18, 1953.

From memory, the interior was unique, with perhaps 10 sets of glass light bars running up one wall from the floor, across the ceiling, and down the opposite wall to the floor. The lighting looked like heating element bars, making it feel like you were sitting inside a hot oven.

An example of the lighting effect used to represent oven heating elements.

The tables were covered with traditional red & white checkered oilcloth. Lou would always stand by our table to chat with my folks for a minute or two. The first memory is of Mr. Pupolo teaching me, hands-on, how to twirl my spaghetti with a fork and spoon.

The rest is pretty much Chicago pizza folklore. According to Lou, "the pizza place was such a new concept that people would come out of curiosity, and that curiosity stuck like perfectly cooked pasta on a wall." 

Several other Il Forno pizza restaurants opened in the following years. Skokie would soon follow on Church Street in 1956. Next, a Highland Park restaurant was opened in 1961 on Roger Williams Avenue in Ravinia, followed by Linden Avenue in Wilmette in 1965. The Skokie store then moved to Morton Grove on Dempster Street in 1970. The Highland Park restaurant, the current location, run by the 3rd generation, opened at 496 Old Elm Road (at Sheridan) in 1972. 

Mike Rudolph, who managed the Highland Park store from 1974, purchased the store from Lou in 1986. Rudolph is still serving the same homemade dough, family sausage recipe, and the same Bruno Pupolo pizza sauce that was created in 1953.

INDEX TO MY ILLINOIS AND CHICAGO FOOD & RESTAURANT ARTICLES.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.