PHOTOS: Bonci Opens Saturday in Wicker/Bucktown
WICKER PARK — It’s time for more pizza. Are you ready?
Following Knead’s recent debut, the latest spot is Bonci, pronounced “Bahn-chi.”
Bonci USA chief executive officer Rick Tasman said on Friday that the Italian pizzeria’s new location at 1566 N. Damen Ave. will open to the public at 11 a.m. Saturday.
There is no menu posted online; the pizza varieties rotate daily and there are sometimes as many as 20 to select from including vegan and vegetarian options.
Similar to a butcher shop, customers take a number and wait for the number to appear on a digital screen. And also like a butcher shop, customers pay by the pound. The square pieces of pizza are cut with scissors.
Tasman said his personal favorite is the Calabrese pepper sausage because of the flavor and “a nice spice.”
To wash all that cheesy and doughy goodness down, Bonci serves soda, water, tea, wine and beer.
There are about 30 seats; spots at a long counter overlooking the busy intersection will likely go fast.
The new outpost follows the chain’s first Chicago location at 161 N. Sangamon St. which opened last summer in the West Loop.
The Wicker Park Bonci creates 25 new part and full-time jobs (big thanks to the Bonci worker who kindly hung out with this reporter’s dog on the sidewalk while she took some quick photos. Block Club is coming very soon and she needs to get back to working on launch stories. It’s always better to talk in third person when you feel hopelessly behind on stuff, isn’t it?).
Hours are 11 a.m.- 11 p.m. weekdays, until midnight on weekends.
