A Q&A with Hillary Lake, co-owner of Hillary’s Chicago Pizza, in St. Augustine, Florida
Concept:
We do Chicago pizza in Florida! I moved to Florida in 2018 to take care of my dad who had Parkinson’s and we decided to stay after he passed. We started making deep dish pizzas during the pandemic because we missed our Chicago pizzas. I posted my pizza on my catering Facebook page and people asked how they could get them. I said, “I can sell them to you!” And we snowballed from there. We partnered with breweries and tap rooms and did pop ups, then farmer’s markets, selling parbaked pizzas. We outgrew our commissary kitchen and found a space that was turnkey and took it over! We now have a brick and mortar with 24 taps of craft beer and wine, dine in and take out. We evolved and do our deep dish, thin crust and some Chicago Italian beef sandwiches.
Pizza Style & Dough:
We use a cornmeal, flour and butter dough. We use the same dough for both styles of pizza. We cold bulk ferment for 24-72 hours and find the sweet spot at 48-72.
Why pizza?
I love pizza and I come from a pizza city. I can eat all the pizza. Pizza was a pandemic accident and purely because Florida has limited Chicago-style pizzerias.
You have described it as a roller coaster pizza journey. What has helped you get to this point?
We had and have amazing support here in Northeast Florida, and buying a restaurant was not on our to-do list. We had a restaurant in Chicago and thought we were done with that journey. I applied to grad school during the pandemic and I worked at a school for special education and my husband worked in insurance. The pizza thing would not go away though. Things magically lined up over and over from pop ups to farmers markets to our funding for the brick and mortar. The location was very serendipitous. The people that told us about our first farmer’s market are the same people who told us about the available kitchen in St. Augustine.
You have a great bar program. How are you able to showcase it?
We do have 24 taps of craft beer. We love to showcase independent breweries from Florida and Illinois and rotate in some of the fan favorites from all over. We like to keep it interesting and the taps are always changing. We are a local small business and love to support local and small businesses with our beer choices.
