It’s easy to walk right by Great Lake, the reincarnated Andersonville storefront whose artisan pizza was once named the best in America. Perhaps co-owners Nick Lessins and Lydia Esparza want it that way, for now at least.
“We are open, but we are still working out the kinks,” Esparza said. “Our goal is just to be back to what it was before, which was word of mouth.”
That may not be possible given the history of this idiosyncratic place with the beloved pizza. (A mobbed daylong pop-up at Cellar Door Provisions in 2019 suggests fans haven’t gone anywhere.) Still, Great Lake was empty when I popped by on Wednesday morning, just over a week after it quietly reintroduced itself a few blocks away from its old location.
A cooler and a few industrial shelves stocked groceries, granola, bread and pantry items, while behind the counter Lessins quietly prepped that famous, supple pizza dough. Esparza chuckled sardonically when I told her I was with the press but reluctantly agreed to an interview.
It’s understandable. The husband-and-wife duo learned what viral meant before viral was a thing, in 2009, after GQ writer Alan Richman told everyone the mortadella-topped pizza with earthy, bready crust at their tiny Andersonville shop with uncompromising standards was the best in the country. Then came the rest of the national media, the lines snaking down Balmoral Avenue, celebrities like Beyoncé and Jay-Z, and frustrating three-hour waits for pizza (for everyone else).
“We were fortunate we weren’t here when everything went virtual,” Esparza said. “There was barely Twitter, barely Facebook or whatever it’s called.”
Great Lake was open for five years before it closed in 2013, owing to a refusal by their landlord to renew their lease. Esparza and Lessins briefly moved back to Michigan and considered opening a Great Lake there before securing a grant from Chicago’s City Planning Department. The buildout at 1476 W. Berwyn Ave. took about two years. They signed a 10-year lease, according to the Chicago Tribune.
“The grant was instrumental in helping us with the buildout,” said Esparza. She designed the minimalist space, with its terrazzo floor, butcher block counter and three cafe tables. “It basically is our money, no investors, which is how we’ve always done it.”
Esparza talked me through Great Lake’s curated selection of groceries and pantry items — many of which go into prepared items, too — including sacks of Breton grey sea salt, Kinnikinnick Farm eggs, Rancho Gordo heirloom dried beans, gelato from Zingerman’s Deli in Ann Arbor, Michigan (“We’re the only ones in Illinois who carry it,” Esparza said), Eden organic pasta and vinegars and muscovado sugar. They’re selling Esparza’s granola and cookies with olive oil instead of butter, plus dense, door stopper-shaped loaves of Lessins’ seeded oat porridge bread and Nordic sourdough rye. The bread also anchors a handful of open-faced and closed sandwiches built from that morning’s farmers market bounty.
“We’re operating like more of a grocer with a kitchen,” Lessins said. Then again, he affably reminded me later, “it was never called Great Lake Pizza.”
The couple realize that they’re competing with online ordering and free delivery, and with fancy dried bean and tea subscriptions. But save for a phone number, website, maybe an Instagram account and a temperamental countertop card reader, they’re determined to keep things mostly analog — as in, walk in if you want to know what pizza varieties are on order that day.
Said pizza will be available daily for takeaway starting around late afternoon until 6 or 7 p.m. The hours aren’t set in stone yet, but the owners say operations will roughly run from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday.
Knowing the pizza was hours from ready, I bought a frozen loaf of Lessins’ Nordic rye made with Illinois flour. A pair of customers walked in, and one gestured at the bread in my hand.
“You gotta toast it,” he said. Then he turned to Esparza. “That stuff never goes stale!”
The next morning, I sliced a piece, toasted it and smeared it generously with butter. It was richly earthy, dense and nutty; mapley sweetness tamed the spicy rye. Like everything else I’ve had here, it was well worth the wait.