Super Bowl night all work, no play for pizza places

Absolutely not.

That was the answer then-16-year-old Lenny Rago got when he asked his boss at the Des Plaines pizzeria where he worked if he could have Jan. 26, 1986, off to watch the Chicago Bears play the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XX.

Denied, the lifelong Bears fan began his shift making pizzas. But as orders flooded in, his boss reassigned him to deliver pizzas for which he earned about $50 in tips.

“I earned $3.35 an hour at the time so $50 was a lot,” said the Mount Prospect resident.

Rago's father-in-law Dan Dolehide, 83, had a far different Super Bowl experience. At the time, the Plainfield resident worked for a box manufacturer whose executive had season tickets and used them to treat clients. Dolehide and a client, Farley Candy Company vice president Phillip Ringelstein, snagged them.

“I drew the short straw,” he quipped. “I had to go to the Super Bowl. Poor me.”

Unable to book hotel rooms, Dolehide and Ringelstein took a 6 a.m. Sunday charter flight to New Orleans, intending to return the same day. After learning their 10 p.m. flight to Chicago was canceled, they spent a sleepless night on the floor, leaning against a wall.

“Super Bowl Sunday turned out to be a 72-hour excursion,” Dolehide recalled. “It was the best day and the worst day of my life. I wouldn't trade it for anything.”

As for Rago, owner of Paninos Pizzeria restaurants in Evanston, Chicago and Park Ridge, history repeated last weekend when some of his employees requested time off to watch the Bears playoff game.

Absolutely not.

“I didn't take off, you're not taking off,” he said. “It's time to make money.”