By Charlie Pogacar
It started as an innocent pizza-making date night. It’s become a highly acclaimed deep-dish joint in a food desert on the South Side of Chicago—this is the story of Lynn’s Chicago Pizza.
Lynn Humphreys and Brandon Bruner both grew up on Chicago’s South Side, a predominantly Black area where, according to Humphreys, you’re far more likely to find a soul food restaurant than a pizzeria. About two years ago, the couple decided to spend a date night cooking homemade deep-dish pizza; it was so good, it got their brains churning: Could they do this for a living? They started making pizzas for their family and friends and earned rave reviews.
This wasn’t a lark—Bruner has over 15 years of professional experience in the culinary world. His experience includes a stint at Labriola, a two-location “skinny deep–dish” brand in Chicago, where he honed his pizza-making chops. The fact that the pizzas he was creating with Humphreys were dynamite, then, didn’t come as much of a surprise.
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Bruner’s deep-dish pizza is distinct. In order to make the pizza lighter and more digestible, he subs semolina in for cornmeal—a traditional ingredient in deep-dish dough. In addition to the semolina, Bruner uses 00 flour and a bread flour to create his unique crust.
“It is airy and bouncy, but it’s not really heavy like you hear about when you’re talking about deep dish in Chicago,” Bruner said. “It’s always like, ‘Oh man, it’s so good!’ But you can only do one slice.”
In May 2023, the duo set up a virtual pizza business. They relied on Facebook and word of mouth to sell pizzas, an endeavor that went so well that they transitioned to a brick-and-mortar location in Woodlawn, the South Side neighborhood where Bruner grew up. The menu is delightfully simple: pizza, wings, salad, select sides, and that’s about it.
“Our goal is to be just that traditional pizzeria,” Bruner said. “There’s not going to be burgers and fries on our menu…that’s where we’re trying to focus on just being a really cool and scalable pizzeria.”
The brick-and-mortar opened up in September 2024, and Humphreys and Bruner have done a masterful job of spreading the word via earned media. The pizzeria’s website has a “press/media” page that showcases 10 different times Lynn’s has already been covered by local media outlets. Some of the mentions are simply blurbs about the new restaurant, while others are in-depth features.
Humphreys said most of the earned media came via a local chamber of commerce that she connected with prior to opening up the pizzeria. But it should be noted that Humphreys and Bruner are very talented when it comes to telling their story: It’s both a love story and an attempt to bring a local restaurant into an area that has very few. (Humphreys estimates the closest restaurant is a diner that is about a mile away from Lynn’s Chicago Pizza).
Humphreys and Bruner have also sought to spread the word by connecting with local influencers. This has been hit and miss—some influencers who reach out to them would like to be paid, something Humphreys and Bruner don’t have a budget for. The other ones—the ones who just want to check out the pizza—have led to a larger social media following and positive PR.
Lynn’s Chicago Pizza also hosts community events, seeking to become a hub in the Woodlawn neighborhood. This is an area where Humphreys’ expertise really shines—she spends her days working as the student activities director at a local community college. Humphreys has brought promotions like open mic night, game night and karaoke to Lynn’s Chicago Pizza.
“Our community is not accustomed to a lot of dining restaurants,” Humphreys said. “We are in a community that is predominantly Black and underinvested in. So now we’re trying to use those activities and promotions to bring in more dine-in [business].”
One of the early challenges Lynn’s has faced is finding out the right cadence for its business hours. Right now, the concept is open for lunch Monday through Friday and for dinner every day besides Tuesdays and Wednesdays. That means Bruner is virtually always in the restaurant, cooking up pizza, wings and salads for the local community.
It’s also been a challenge to educate customers about how long a deep-dish pizza, made from scratch, takes to cook. Wait times typically sit around 45 minutes, and Bruner and Humphreys encourage customers to order online for this reason.
Humphreys and Bruner are hoping the concept is successful enough that they can eventually open up concepts in other South Side neighborhoods. For now, though, they are focused on creating something special for the Woodlawn community, day in and day out.
“Me and Brandon, we live in this community as well, so it really is an honor to see the needs of the community, and what it needs in terms of good and fresh food,” Humphreys said. “It’s a chef-driven concept and it’s important to us that we definitely believe in our product. We’re going to put everything we have into it.”
