By Charlie Pogacar
Nick Scarpino has spent most of his life in the Chicago area, so becoming CEO of Giordano’s—the iconic Chicago deep-dish chain that claims 66 locations—was more than a professional opportunity. It was, in many ways, a personal dream come true.
There were also few people as qualified as Scarpino to take a storied Chicago brand and continue its national growth. Scarpino spent a decade as an executive at Portillo’s, the famous Chicago Italian Beef and hot dog quick-service brand. He helped take that iconic Chicago brand public in 2021 after a decade-long run leading marketing and growth. Not long after, he got a call that changed everything: Would he be interested in becoming the CEO of Giordano’s?
“I said, oh my goodness, Giordano’s is my favorite deep-dish pizza of all time,” Scarpino told PMQ. “The deep dish sausage pizza in particular.”
Related: Giordano’s Offering $100,000, Other Prizes, In Online Ordering Sweepstakes
Scarpino is now steering the brand through a new chapter, one that protects Giordano’s 50-year history while pushing forward on digital modernization, new menu innovation—including a soon-to-launch tavern-style pizza—and a series of collaborations with fellow iconic Chicago brands.
The brand’s growth model includes a balance of corporate-owned and franchise locations in high-traffic markets like Washington, D.C.—and a loyalty program and mobile app are on the way before the end of the year.
PMQ recently sat down with Scarpino to talk about legacy, loyalty and what’s next for one of Chicago’s most beloved pizza chains.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and flow.
PMQ: Maybe this goes without saying but…why did the opportunity to lead Giordano’s appeal to you?
Scarpino: I’ve been in Chicagoland basically my whole life, I’m a hometown guy. I would go all the way back to when I was a cashier in high school—on summer and winter breaks in college I was a cashier at Portillo’s. Much later in life, I joined the executive team at Portillo’s. I was the first executive hire after the founder, Dick Portillo, sold to private equity. He sold in 2014, and so I joined as the first-ever marketer, and we had a great run there for 10 years. I was part of the process that took the company public in 2021.
I was thrilled and happy to still be at Portillo’s, and I got a call one day and they said, what would you think about being the CEO of Giordano’s? I felt like it was a great opportunity, and I feel very lucky and blessed to be here.
PMQ: Tell me more about your own research process as incoming CEO.
Scarpino: Every single Sunday night, I would go by myself to the Giordano’s in Naperville, Illinois, which is by my house, and I would just sit at the bar and try to eat every single thing on the menu. I hadn’t [previously] eaten everything on the menu—I’d mostly just eaten sausage deep-dish. So that was fun.
And then, quickly after starting, my first priority was to meet every single franchisee. We have 19 different franchise partners, and I met them all. I also met all of our corporate-owned restaurant regional directors and general managers. A silly little thing that I’ve done—I asked someone to make me a name tag so that I’m not just some stranger walking up to guest tables. And people are not shy. They will tell you their opinions—they want to tell the CEO their opinions.
PMQ: How do you think about balancing innovation with such a legacy brand?
Scarpino: Rule No. 1 at Giordano’s is, don’t ruin the brand. I don’t plan—we don’t plan—on touching the No. 1 seller, the deep-dish pizza. The recipe has worked for a really long time, and we don’t want to mess with that.
With that said, every brand has to change and has to adapt. The thing I focus on a lot is Giordano’s going digital. We don’t yet have an online ordering app. We’re in the pizza category. It’s kind of table stakes to have better tools for guests to place orders more frequently.
So I think that it’s don’t mess it up—rule number one. And tapping into those nostalgic feelings is kind of rule number two. I call it newstalgia. People want to remember and experience Giordano’s in the way they always have, but that doesn’t mean we can’t also do new things.
PMQ: Can you give an example of that balance—old and new?
Scarpino: This fall, we’re going to launch a new tavern-style pizza. Chicago has two famous types of pizza. One is deep dish, which we consider ourselves experts in and we’re very proud of. And the other is tavern-style—the circle, thin crust, cut into squares, extra crispy.
We do not have a true tavern-style pizza, and I feel like it’s something missing from our menu. We want to drive frequency and more uses, not just be occasion-driven, which is what you often get with deep-dish pizza. Deep dish is great for birthdays, celebrations and anniversaries. Tavern-style pizza is, “I need it quick, and I don’t want to cook tonight.” You can do it more frequently.
Luckily, when I came on board in December [2024], I mentioned doing tavern-style to our chef, Jesse [Harris], and he was like, ‘Oh, don’t worry. I’ve already got a recipe.’ So we had a head start.
PMQ: Do you see it more as a loyalty play or customer acquisition?
Scarpino: I think it’s going to be both. It will go hand in hand with a loyalty program launch. We don’t have one right now. If it introduces people to the brand for the first time, that’s great. But we need to just get people who maybe come for a deep-dish pizza once a year to come see us more. So it would also be an occasion-based frequency play.
PMQ: What are some of the things you won’t change as it pertains to the overall Giordano’s vibe?
Scarpino: We don’t want to change our relentless focus on the guest service. The majority of our sales are still dine-in. We are still a classic pizzeria. We will always be a classic pizzeria, and we will always welcome people into our dining rooms. At the same time, we have to adapt to the new consumer and what people want. When I started just six months ago, there were many of our locations that had not yet gotten onto third-party delivery platforms. The guests have already demonstrated that they want to be there. So we have to adapt to changing consumer preferences without damaging the authentic Chicago pizzeria experience that we’ve built over the last 50 years.
PMQ: Do you have any DELCO locations?
Scarpino: We have a handful of DELCO locations, yes. They perform well for us. They’re obviously a much smaller footprint. But we only have a handful, and so it’s not necessarily a strategy that we’re looking for going forward. But it has worked in the places we’ve put them.
PMQ: How are you benchmarking your progress? Do you look at other Chicago brands like Lou Malnati’s? Do you look at other pizza chains? Or restaurant brands in general?
Scarpino: Lou Malnati’s? Never heard of them—just kidding. Yes, we look at our hometown competitive sets when we do benchmarks. We also keep an eye on the broader pizza category. There are leaders in our space, like Domino’s, that we look at—their technology and things like that.
But we also look broadly at casual dining. It’s not lost on us, the renaissance that’s happening at Chili’s, for example. That’s a legacy brand that’s having kind of a moment. Kevin [Hochman], their CEO, is a mentor of mine. He also went from marketing to CEO, and so I go, ‘Hey, I have a lot to learn here,’ and we have some great conversations.
PMQ: Let’s talk about your new ‘Chi-town Flavors’ collaboration with Weber Grill Restaurants. How did that come to be?
Scarpino: If we look at the broader Chicagoland restaurant landscape, there are just so many iconic brands, and we want to partner with them. Younger guests especially love different collaborations these days, and so we’re trying to tap into that.
We named the series “Chi-Town Flavors.” The first one we did was with [Italian Beef brand] Buona. We did an Italian beef pizza with them, and it sold out really quickly.
The next one we’re doing is with Weber Grill and Weber Grill Restaurants, which are based in Chicago. We’re gonna keep coming out with these—we have many more planned through the rest of this year, all the way into next year and beyond.
PMQ: I have noticed that Chicagoans have a level of pride you don’t see with many other cities or states. Can you tell me more about that?
Scarpino: I think loyalty in Chicago starts with sports teams—and probably second is restaurants. We’re super proud of being the country’s second city. We’re second to no one, but we’ve been named the second city, and it’s kind of a chip on our shoulder. If I was to build a Mount Rushmore of Chicago foods, it would be deep-dish pizza, Chicago-style hot dog, Italian beef sandwich and tavern-style pizza. That’s the big four.
