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Who Sold the First Italian Beef? For Chicago’s Classic Foods, the Origin Stories are Debatable

David Hammond
An Italian beef sandwich from Johnnie's Beef on a brown bag
A file photo of an Italian beef sandwich from Johnnie's Beef in Elmwood Park. Credit: Kathleen Hinkel for WTTW.

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You’ve probably heard the old saying that “Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan.” In writing Made in Chicago: Stories behind 30 Great Hometown Bites, it was not uncommon to uncover multiple individuals of varying degrees of credibility who claimed that they were the inventors of deep dish pizza, the Chicago hot dog, or the Italian beef sandwich – the classic triumvirate of Chicago original foods.

In the case of Chicago’s deep dish pizza, the conflicting origin stories are particularly intense, even if it is generally agreed upon that it was created at Pizzeria Uno. According to Uno’s website, “The Uno’s story begins in Chicago in 1943 when Ike Sewell developed deep dish pizza and opened a new type of restaurant at the corner of Ohio & Wabash.” Unmentioned in this retelling are Ric Riccardo, Alice Mae Redmond, and Adolpho ‘Rudy’ Malnati, Sr., all of whom seem to have had a big influence on what came to be known as Chicago’s deep dish pizza.

Tim Samuelson, Chicago’s Cultural Historian, says there is “no debate” about who created Chicago’s deep dish pizza.

“Ric Riccardo was the person behind opening what was originally called ‘The Pizzeria’ at Ohio and Wabash – and its evolution into Pizzeria Riccardo and Pizzeria Uno in the same location,” Samuelson says. “Although there are many colorful stories about Sewell collaborating with Riccardo at the outset, he didn't come into the picture until slightly after ‘The Pizzeria’ was opened.”

The Chicago hot dog, according to Fluky’s founder Abe Drexler, was invented by (none other than!) himself in the late 1920s. However, Bruce Kraig, food historian and author of Hot Dog: A Global History, says there’s no evidence to support Drexler’s claim. The Chicago dog was not born of any single person; rather it was the creation of many people of many ethnicities coming together in Chicago, specifically at the Maxwell Street Market, around Halsted Street and Roosevelt Road. Sausage and bun came from German immigrants (though the bun’s poppy seeds were contributed by Eastern European Jews); relish was a favorite of English newcomers; sport peppers arrived with the Mexicans, and the chopped onion, tomatoes, and cucumbers were probably first sourced from Italian, Greek, and Jewish produce mongers at the Maxwell Street Market. The all-American Chicago hot dog is a beautiful expression of Chicago’s multi-cultural heritage.

Other cities have pizza, of course, and hot dogs are practically universal, but Chicago has one food that sets it apart from all others: Italian beef. Ex-Chicagoans go a little glassy eyed when recollecting the bulging fistfuls of juicy meat they enjoyed in earlier years, and it’s not uncommon to see Italian beef joints opening in faraway urban centers like New York, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles – especially after the success of the TV show The Bear and its focus on an Italian beef joint.

There’s some contention regarding the person responsible for first putting Italian beef on a menu. The sandwich itself was the product of “peanut weddings” in Chicago’s turn-of-the-century Italian neighborhoods. At these humble nuptials, there was little money (peanuts, you might say), so the newly arrived immigrant newlyweds stretched a dollar by securing a modest quantity of beef, slicing it thin, and serving it on a bun doused in beef broth, giving their guests a hefty handful of food.

Scala is a name well-known to long-time Chicagoans, and many believe Pasquale Scala was the man whose catering service provided and perhaps served Italian beef sandwiches at these peanut weddings. Later, Scala’s became the primary supplier of beef to Italian beef operations.

But who was first to serve an Italian beef in a streetside stand or restaurant?

Chris Pacelli, a colorful raconteur whose family started Al’s #1 in the Little Italy neighborhood, was quoted in Made in Chicago:

“You got to remember Italians, in the ’30s, late ’20s, there were all kinds of gamblers, half-assed Mafia guys and stuff. My uncle Al was involved in all that, a gambler, dis dat. Well, he gets in trouble, has to go to jail, comes out of jail and starts driving a truck. A friend says, ‘Let's open up a bookie place.' So, my uncle says, ‘Why don't I do beef sandwiches? I'll sell them as a front.' There was like five guys. The original beef stand was on Laflin and Harrison. They didn't have gas or nothing in those days, so everything was charcoal. First name for this idea was ‘Al's Barbecue.’”

Thus was born the Italian beef sandwich. Or was it? According to the website for Ciccio, a pizza and Italian beef operation on Navy Pier that’s run by the Ferraro family, the sandwich was “commercialized” in 1938, but we’re told the Ferraros began selling Italian beef three years prior.

Mario Ferraro serves an Italian beef sandwich at Ciccio
Mario Ferraro serves an Italian beef sandwich at Ciccio. Credit: David Hammond for WTTW

In an interview around the time of the last National Italian Beef Day (May 25), Mario Ferraro told me that the Italian beef sandwich was first served to the public by his parents around 1934 or 1935 at a Little Italy grocery store, about a five-minute walk from Al’s first location. 

“When this little grocery store couldn't sell the meat, they would cook it. It was all different cuts of meat. If it was prime rib, we made the Italian beef with prime rib. My mother and father would make sandwiches, and they would take them down to Fulton Market and sell them. Finally, they went into the catering business,” Ferraro says. 

Today, you can get an outstanding beef sandwich at Ciccio – “it’s my mom and dad’s recipe,” says Ferraro – and munch it while watching Lake Michigan waves crash against the pier. It’s a fine sandwich, with slightly thicker beef slices and a wonderfully crusty bun. As you savor this sandwich, know that you’re taking a big bite of Chicago history, and that the Italian beef, Chicago hot dog, and deep dish pizza are all born of the creative efforts of not just one person but rather a whole community who combined elements of past and present to make something very good to eat.