Restaurateur returns to Illinois to open business with mom

After owning five restaurants in Naples, Fla., over the past 26 years, Joe Kornacker has returned to the suburbs to launch his latest venture with his 87-year-old mother.

The two recently opened Mama Toni's Pizza & Catering at 1015 W. Stearns Road in Bartlett. Toni Kornacker, Joe's mother and the restaurant's namesake, can often be seen in the kitchen making her authentic spaghetti sauce, Italian sausage or meatballs.

"She's here three or four days a week," Joe Kornacker said.

The family business focuses on pickup and delivery of an array of Italian foods, pizza and ribs.

"It's a family-owned business. We make it all from scratch," Kornacker said.

He tried to persuade his mother, who lives in Des Plaines, to join him in Florida to launch the business venture, but she demurred, so they launched the venture here.

Kornacker, who has spend his entire career in the food industry, said the restaurant offers a full menu including chicken, seafood and pasta starting at $5.25. A full-slab rib dinner goes for $16.95, he said. The restaurant makes its own French fries and Italian beef sandwiches.

The pizza has been a hit, Kornacker said.

"The pizza dough has a seasoning in it. That's unusual for around here," he said.

He added that Mama Toni's isn't your typical Italian place with red-and-white checkered tablecloths.

"It has more of a Tuscany-style decor," he said.

The entrepreneur designed the business and the kitchen himself.

"This is what I've always done," he said.

Most recently, he operated Frascati's Italian Restaurant & Deli in Naples, a 180-seat eatery he sold before returning to Illinois. Over the past two and a half decades, he designed, built and operated four other restaurants before selling them to Illinois residents retiring in the South, he said.

The new Bartlett restaurant will conduct a grand opening celebration Saturday and Sunday. Before the grand opening, the eatery is handing out coupons for a free 14-inch cheese pizza.

For more information, contact (630) 372-1999.