For Jerry Benedetto, the founder, pizzaiolo, and namesake of
Jerryâs Pizzaâtentatively scheduled to open to the public May 17 inside the Bear Paw Innâthe moment came late one evening in 2020. âThis person reached out to me, and shared that their mother was in hospice,â he recalls. âShe was from Chicago, and just really wanted to enjoy some Chicago style pizza.â By this time,
Jerryâs was already a word-of-mouth sensation, a social media hit with a 1,000-person waitlist and pilgrimage-making fans from across the West Coast. Jerry obliged; one of his achingly, almost confessionally authentic thin-crust toppings-under-mozzarella sweet sauce tavern-style Chicago dive bar pies was delivered ASAP. âShe wrote me back the next dayâ I havenât seen my mother eat this much in years! She started telling me all these stories Iâd never heard from her childhood!ââand two weeks later she passed away.â