Naperville's best pizza? Little Pops, event attendees say
The first Naperville Pizza Wars, sponsored by the Naperville Noon Lions Club, was a battle against crowds and a fight for bragging rights.
An estimated 1,100 people came out to sample thin-crust slices from nine pizzerias and vote for their favorites in a new fundraiser for the service club, which puts its proceeds toward helping people with vision and hearing loss.
After it was finished, one pizzeria went home with all the honors and a couple of Lions Club leaders said the popularity of the event exceeded their expectations.
Participants voted Little Pop's New York Pizzeria Trattoria as the winner in all three categories — best sauce, best crust and best pizza.
“They must have been the favorite to win all three,” Lions Club member Bob Hull said.
But those same pizza fans who favored Little Pop's had to wait in long lines to get their samples from each shop.
The cafeteria at Naperville Central High School could hardly contain the crowds, let alone give them any space.
“Wall to wall human beings,” Lions Club member Steve Hertzberg said was what attendees encountered at the event, which he planned based on a similar Pizza Wars that benefits the District 99 Education Foundation in Downers Grove. “We didn't really prepare for that.”
The Lions Club had sold 585 tickets to the event for $10 each as of Saturday. But in the last few days before the event on Thursday, 367 more people signed up Then another 260 showed up to buy tickets at the door, Hertzberg said.
“People had a hard time getting to the pizza,” Hull said. “They had to wait in line a while, which was not good. Hopefully we'll be able to correct that if we do it again next year.”
Shops including Aurelio's Pizza, Braconi's Restaurant & Pizzeria, Cassano's Pizzeria, Giordano's, Little Italian Pizza, Lou Malnati's Pizzeria, Rocco's Pizzeria and Uncle Pete's Pizza managed the crowds with small slices and plenty of pies.
“The pizza vendors were fantastic,” Hertzberg said. “They just bellied up to the bar and made the extra food and kept everyone happy all night.”
The Lions Club expects to raise an estimated $12,000 from the event. Club members said they initially hoped to attract about 600 participants and raise about $5,000. As long as the proceeds exceed what the club made last year selling funnel cakes at the Exchange Club of Naperville's Ribfest — about $4,000 — Hull and Hertzberg said they would have been happy.
The club decided to launch the pizza wars because funnel cake sales at Ribfest were not as profitable as they had been in the past, when they could draw as much as $20,000.