You don’t see it too often, but sometimes a pizza style from a specific region will start to transform into a new creation. As new pizzeria owners enter the scene, new toppings pop up, healthier recipe tweaks and specialties may take hold, and chefs even rethink their approach to cutting the pizza—in the case of some Quad Cities-style pies, going from strip cut to triangle.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First, let’s consider what the traditional Quad Cities pizza style looks like before we discuss how it’s slowly been changing.

The Quad Cities region is actually a group of five (yes, five) cities running along the Mississippi River, including Rock Island, Moline and East Moline in northwestern Illinois, and Davenport and Bettendorf in southeastern Iowa. Mind you, pizza makers in the area don’t have trouble doing basic math. According to a spokesperson for the Quad Cities Convention & Visitors Bureau, they toyed with the idea of changing the name to Quin Cities when Bettendorf was added, but the name never stuck.

And, unlike more popular New York and Neapolitan styles, there’s a good chance you’ve never stumbled across a Quad Cities or QC-style pizza on a menu unless you’re from, or traveled through, the area.

So what makes the Quad Cities style stand out? Here are just a few of the style’s unique traits:

• Dough that contains malt and molasses
• Finely crumbled lean sausage laced with fennel
• Thick sauce with a bit of a bite
• Enough Midwestern mozzarella cheese on top of the toppings to ensure “gooeyness”
• A dusting of cornmeal on the pizza peel
• Cooked in a rotating deck oven for about eight minutes at 500˚
• Traditionalists cut the pizza with cooking shears
• Cut into strips instead of triangles

At Frank’s Pizza, open since 1955, small pizzas are cut in triangles and large pizzas are cut in strips. (Photo by Heather Cray)

The Essential Quad Cities Pie

“You either love or hate the Quad Cities style,” said Dean Creech, who got his first pizzeria job at 16, working at Harris Pizza, one of the early purveyors of Quad Cities-style pie. Creech now owns Uncle Bill’s Pizza in Davenport, Iowa, which he purchased from the original owner in 2002. “If we served someone from New York this pizza, they’d say, ‘What’s this? It’s cut wrong, and the toppings are under the cheese.’ It’s nothing like a New York-style or a Chicago-style pizza. It’s its own thing, and if you love it, you really love it.”

Creech explained that Quad Cities-style pizza features dough made with malt and molasses; toppings that include finely ground, lean sausage; thick sauce with a bit of a bite; and real cheese covering the toppings. “The malt and molasses in the dough adds a bit of sweetness, along with the flavor of the malt,” Creech said. “It also gives the crust a good crunch and color when you cook it.”

Beyond the sausage and malted dough, the oven is one of the most important ingredients in a pizza from the Quad Cities, according to Creech. A rotating oven, which ensures an even bake in eight minutes without the need for turning, is Creech’s go-to kitchen appliance. “You can get the rotating oven dialed in just right,” he said. “Other ovens don’t cook the pizzas like these do.”

A Pizza With a Past

As is the case with most regional pizzas, there’s a bit of mystery surrounding who first began serving the unique Quad Cities-style pizza. Many who live in the region credit Harris Pizza as the style’s originator. However, records indicate that while Harris Pizza opened in 1960, Frank’s Pizza opened five years earlier in Silvis, Illinois.

And, to further complicate the matter, research shows links to a very similar pizza recipe that began 200 miles away, in 1943, in the town of Calumet City, Illinois. Brothers Tony and Frank Maniscalco came to the Quad Cities (specifically, Rock Island, Illinois) from Calumet City, separately, in the early 1950s (according to Tony’s son, Tony Jr., in a newspaper’s letter to the editor in January 2007).

PMQ spoke with Phil Bacino, co-owner (and grandson of the founder) of Original John’s Pizzeria in Calumet City, which opened in 1943, and confirmed that Tony did work at Original John’s.

So we wanted to know: Did the Quad Cities style actually originate in Calumet City?

Interestingly enough, Bacino said he has never been to the Quad Cities to taste its pizza. But he did note several similarities between the Quad Cities style and his pizza—or how it would have been when Tony worked at the pizzeria. “We’ve never had any kind of spiciness in our sauce, but we do use a rotating deck oven, and we used to use malt and molasses in the dough, but we don’t anymore,” Bacino said. “We make our own fennel-based sausage, forming it into loaves and cooking it to get the grease out before we grind it into crumbles. We also used scissors to cut the pizza up until the 1990s.”

Tony apparently brought his skills from Calumet City to Rock Island, Illinois, in the early 1950s and took a job making pizzas at The Paddock Club. The gig eventually led to him to open several restaurants, including Tony’s Club Capri in Moline, Tony’s Pic-a-Pizza in Rock Island, and Tony’s Pizzeria in Davenport.

He later sold his business and recipe to Mama Bosso Pizza (a frozen pizza manufacturer) in 1964, and, for the most part, left the pizza business.

But local legend says that Tony taught the original owner of Frank’s Pizza his recipe, and an employee of Tony’s taught those at Harris Pizza.

As with most pizza legends, we’ll probably never know for sure what really happened. What we do know is that the Quad Cities ended up with a very unique style of pizza, and one that is beginning to transform for the modern consumer.

Ben Harris, general manager of Uncle Bill’s Pizza, shows off his Quad City-style pie. (Photo by Heather Cray)

Modernizing the Traditional

The majority of pizzerias serving Quad City-style pizza throughout the region stick to traditional recipes and serving methods. However, some believe that tradition can use an upgrade every now and then.

The biggest difference between the original techniques and today’s versions is the elimination of cooking shears to cut the pizza. Some traditionalists use the scissors for nostalgic reasons, but most have moved on to knives and rock cutters to slice their pizzas. “Knives are faster and safer than shears in every way,” Creech said. “I’ve taken the tip off my middle finger three times using scissors.”

Kathy Rashid, co-owner of Treehouse Pub & Eatery in Bettendorf, said, “We’re changing Quad City pizza. We wanted to bring in a healthier version of America’s favorite food. We use wholesome toppings, and it’s not gobbed down with cheese, so you can taste all of the authentic ingredients.”

Joe Schilling, owner of Saint Giuseppe’s Heavenly Pizza in East Moline, brought a Gen Z approach to the Quad Cities. Schilling took over management of the family pizzeria when he was 18 and his dad, Bobby, went into politics. But he shook up tradition by removing “Quad Cities” from his vocabulary (and his marketing). “I think ‘Quad Cities style’ is an old wording; I’d prefer to just call it really good pizza,” he said. “I don’t want to strive to make my pizza like anyone else.”

Whether sticking to tradition or embracing change, the Quad Cities offer a plethora of unique pizzas for those who take the time to explore the region. And if you don’t live in the Quad Cities, you might still luck out and find the style in your city, even outside the Midwest. Kim and Steve Ortiz brought it as far south as Atlanta when they opened Generations Pizza in 2019. For Quad Cities expatriates, it’s like a taste of home once again. “We had a couple that drove five hours from Florida just for our pizza,” Kim told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution earlier this year. “It’s fun to hear some of their stories as well and just to talk about your memories.”

Liz Barrett Foster is PMQ’s former editor in chief and author of Pizza: A Slice of American History. Originally published in the January/February 2019 issue of PMQ, this article has been updated and reposted to ensure the information remains current and relevant.