Pizzeria Uno founder Sewell dies

Nation's Restaurant News, Sept 3, 1990 by Milford Prewitt

Pizzeria Uno founder Sewell dies

CHICAGO -- Ike Sewell, founder of Pizzeria Uno, inventor of the Chicago-style deep-dish pizza and a Standard Brands executive for more than 30 years, died of leukemia at the age of 87.

A physically vigorous man up until the time of his illness, Sewell led a rewarding and challenging life, 50 years of it spent as a restaurateur, a food product innovator and an industry executive.

Not only is he widely regarded as the inventor of the deep-dish pizza -- Pizzeria Uno's signature item and a staple for many other pizza chains, including Domino's -- Sewell is reputedly the first restaurateur to open and introduce the first upscale Tex-Mex restaurant in Chicago.

"He really started a food trend with deep-dish pizza back in 1943," said Craig Miller, president and chief operating officer of Uno Restaurants Corp. "Ike was a tremendous individual and entrepreneur who enjoyed life and the restaurant business.

"Everybody liked Ike. He was a friend to some of the most powerful and wealthy people in Chicago."

Sewell was born 50 miles east of Dallas in the small town of Willis Point, Texas, a community he remained fiercely loyal to late in life.

A graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, where he achieved national acclaim as an All-American football star in 1924, Sewell was inducted into the Hall of Fame by the National Football Foundation during the group's annual Hall of Fame dinner in 1988.

After college he worked for several years for American Airlines. But with the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, Sewell joined Standard Brands as a salesman, kicking off a career with the company that led to a vice presidential suite before he retired in 1965.

In 1943, while living in Chicago, Sewell began dabling in the restaurant business as a sideline with new-found friend Ric Riccardo, the late founder and owner of Riccardo's, a still popular and flourishing restaurant.

Riccardo had returned from Italy during the war with a then-new product called pizza. He and Sewell decided the product could be served as a full meal, and they opened a restaurant in the basement of an old mansion on East Ohio Street in Chicago, calling the establishment Pizzeria Uno.

After several hits and misses on ingredient quality and execution, Sewell and Riccardo settled on the product that has since become known as Chicago's culinary trademark: a thick-crusted pizza baked in a deep pan.

In 1955 and just one block away from their first restaurant, Sewell and Riccardo opened Pizzeria Due.

Ten years later Sewell opened Su Casa in a coach house behind the building housing Pizzeria Due. Su Casa was regarded as the first upscale Mexican restaurant in Chicago.

The popularity of the pizza concepts elicited numerous franchising requests from entrepreneurs in and out of Chicago, but most were rejected until 1979, when Sewell signed a franchise agreement with Aaron Spencer in Boston. Spencer is the chairman and chief executive officer of Uno Restaurant Corp., franchisor and operator of 29 of Pizzeria Uno's 75 restaurants.

Sewell is survived by his wife, the former Florence Davis.