Ever since Butler’s Pizza, a small and beloved chain in Indianapolis, closed its doors seven years ago, fans of the brand have mourned the loss. Now it’s back, thanks to Dionne Butler, the son of the company’s founders, Wiley and Amanda Butler. And it’s getting some invaluable free coverage from the local news media.

The new location can be found in The Amp at 16 Tech, a food hall on the city’s west side, and it has brought back customer favorites like Grippo’s potato chips, Faygo sodas and, perhaps most importantly, a secret-recipe pizza sauce that was famous for nearly three decades.

Butler’s Pizza first opened in 1990 and grew to three stores before Butler’s parents closed it down entirely in 2017. “I grew up on pizza in that restaurant,” Dionne told the Indianapolis Monthly. “When I broke the news [about reopening it] to my mom and dad, they were so happy.”

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Locals were, too, it seems. The Butler’s Pizza name is still so highly regarded that various Indianapolis media outlets have covered its resurrection, helping to create free buzz for the new operation. And the media-savvy Dionne has been only happy to talk to them, appearing in TV news segments for WISH and WRTV.

Moreover, opening the shop in a bustling food hall instead of a full-fledged brick-and-mortar operation is a modest but sensible comeback strategy. Located in HqO, an innovation hub, The Amp is practically a small town in its own right, with a seafood market, a burger joint, a bakery, a Mexican restaurant, a coffee spot and more. It even has a barber shop.

Meanwhile, a new generation of the family has gotten involved in Butler’s Pizza, including Dionne’s own children, twin sisters Dejanae and Dominae, who recently turned 18, and son Daion.

WISH featured Dionne and Dejanae in a January 22 pizza-making segment. Dejanae was still just 17 when she deftly built a pie on-air while her dad chatted with the hosts. “Going out to places in the neighborhood or in Indianapolis, period, we were always running into customers, and they were always asking, ‘When are you guys coming back?’” Butler said. “So I decided to bring it back.”

He added that the food hall is “a perfect location for us. Because it’s, like, centrally located from our previous locations [in a] perfect side of town, so it just made sense.”

WRTV also showed up for a visit to the pizzeria in late February, interviewing both Butler and his wife, Maria, who helps run the restaurant. Maria seemed to realize what she was in for as a manager of a pizza shop with a legacy like Butler’s Pizza. “I knew how much work he and his parents have done over the years,” she told WRTV. “I was very nervous. Being a business owner is demanding. You don’t have any days off.”

But a food hall, Dionne said, was the right choice. “This is high traffic [with] a lot of people who just didn’t know about the business, so it’s definitely a challenge now,” he said. “It’s a little bit busier, but we’re all up for the challenge.”

“Sometimes,” he added, “I still kind of wake up and can’t believe I’m a business owner, you know what I mean? But I think it’s amazing. I just have to pinch myself sometime.”

Pizzerias