One of Chicago’s oldest and most well-known deep dish pizza recipes has made it to Indianapolis. Lou Malnati’s first dine-in restaurant opened its doors in Broad Ripple Monday night at 6320 Ferguson St.
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“We started in the early 70s in Chicago in the northern suburb of Lincolnwood,” said Lou Malnati’s owner Marc Malnati. “My dad thought he was going to be Ray Kroc. He got cancer and kind of went into a tailspin and died at 47. We just kind of hung on for dear life. My mom was real involved, and we were fortunate and started going in the right direction and opening in cities that really welcomed this product.”
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Malnati said the move to Indy was a long time coming.
“My wife and I as well as our daughters and son in laws, we all went to IU in Bloomington,” he said. “We’ve been promising our friends that live in Indianapolis that we’re going to open up a store in their town next year. We’ve been saying next year for I don’t know 40 years now.”
The decorations inside the restaurant are an homage to Broad Ripple’s past.
“A tribute to the amusement park that once stood in this area of Broad Ripple called the White City and that was right at the beginning of the 20th century, 1905,” said Malnati. “The White City Amusement Park had been sort of a play off of Chicago’s Columbian Exposition, amusement park or big world fair called the White City.”
