Photo by Katherine Bish
It’s a recipe for disaster: A person who worked in restaurants—who never owned one (but always wanted to)—came up with a plausible concept, then finally made enough money to make it happen…and then crashed and burned. That person is not Chris Sommers. He bought a recipe (a single, simple, cornmeal pizza-crust recipe), rolled out his first Pi Pizzeria in the Loop on 3.14 of 2008, and unwittingly embarked on the biggest local pizza success story since Marge and Ed Imo fiddled with a gooey cheese back in ’64. Sommers opened Pi–Kirkwood in October, ratcheting up a concept that, quite frankly, didn’t need much ratcheting: He hired a fine-dining chef to amp up the menu and an acclaimed dessert chef to formulate custom-blended natural ice creams for the “Shake Bar”; installed four pizza ovens, enough to accommodate any onslaught of to-go orders; and even procured the multidecked, white clapboard house behind the restaurant, providing diners the quintessential Kirkwoodian setting to enjoy what’s quickly becoming the summum bonum of local pizza. Bake on.
10935 Manchester Kirkwood Phone: 314-966-8080 Website: restaurantpi.com Hours: Lunch and dinner daily
