Chicago's favorite deep dish pizza chain, Lou Malnati's, is shipping flash-frozen pizzas across the country as one way to combat the coronavirus shutdown

• Lou Malnati's deep dish pizza is among the best that Chicago has to offer.
• The pizza's iconic butter crust, sausage blend, and thin slices of Wisconsin-made mozzarella cheese make it a stand-out in the region.
• The chain is no longer open for dine-in service, but continues curbside pick-up and delivery as well as shipping frozen pizzas nationwide.
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Following is a full transcript of this video.

- Taryn Varricchio: This cheesy, meaty, deep-dish pizza is from Lou Malnati's in Chicago, which we filmed at in September 2019. Sources like Food Network and Zagat continue to rank it above the rest for a reason. Actually, it's four reasons: the buttermilk crust that holds the pizza together; the mozzarella cheese, always in slices, never shredded; their exclusive blend of sausage, loaded across every inch of the pie; and the lengths they go to get perfectly ripe California tomatoes.

Hina: I think the way that they construct their pizza makes every ingredient shine. Like, every bite is so hearty. It is like nothing you've ever experienced. It's so good.

Sarah: They're known for their crust. And it's the perfect amount of, like, a little bit crispy, a little bit crunchy, but still, like, buttery and doughy.

Taryn: Right now most restaurants and bars are relying solely on delivery and takeout, including Malnati's. So I chatted with their owner, Marc Malnati, about how the restaurant is still delivering their famous pies, even during this really challenging time.

Did you do that yourself? How did you do that?

Marc Malnati: I did. I'll teach you if you want. All right, now I'm in one of our restaurants.

Taryn: So, now, obviously we're talking to you via Zoom rather than being at the restaurant with you. Can you tell us a little bit about what your restaurant is dealing with right now and how you guys are kind of handling the changes from the coronavirus shutdown?

Marc: Yeah, so, in this new environment we're doing the best we can to deliver pizza to the curbside, to send it in cars. You know, people want their comfort food at a time like this.

Taryn: That comfort food starts with their signature Buttercrust. So, the way that you curve it up, can you explain again why you do that? In order to hold it, you said?

Marc: So, we'll pat the crust along the bottom of the pan, and then we'll pull it up the sides, just so that the cheese or the tomato sauce doesn't leak out over the top. 'Cause if it does, it'll start burning underneath the crust. So we want the crust to be high enough to just be a solid container for all the ingredients that we put on top of the pizza.

Taryn: Then come layers of mozzarella cheese, made from the same Wisconsin dairy for the last 50 years.

Hina: Like, you can really tell that that is some, like, nice local Wisconsin cheese, and it's not just something random they picked up from the grocery store.

Taryn: Is there a way of adding it to the pizza? Is there a certain reason you do it that way, with the slices layered kind of around like that?

Marc: The reason we use slices is because we use so much sausage on the pizza, and it's easier to layer the sausage on top of a flat bed of cheese than it would be if it was grated. It just wouldn't stay in place. And we wanna have an abundance of sausage. So that's the main reason.

Taryn: It's that sausage that makes the Chicago Classic pie at Lou Malnati's so popular.

Sarah: Their sausage, there's something about it, it just, like, it tastes so good. And I think what I love about it is that there is a sausage in every single bite you get. They use a lot of sausage. And they really take advantage of the surface area of the pizza, and they just load it up.

Taryn: The seasoning is a blend of garlic, salt, and pepper, loaded bit by bit until you can't see any more mozzarella cheese. Is there a reason for that technique?

Marc: I want the cheese to bubble through the sausage. It can't be a flat layer. So there's a prodigious amount of sausage, but the cheese is coming through all over the place. Again, I want to taste every ingredient in every bite.

Taryn: And to top it off, a sweet and tangy sauce made with California tomatoes.

Marc: We use a whole-peel pear tomato. And when they can that tomato, they wait until the tomato hits its zenith, when it's the reddest, the plumpest, you know, the most sugar just kinda jumping out of that skin. And we'll wait till then. We send a group of guys out there, and they watch the tomatoes until they're exactly the right profile for us.

Taryn: Pies cook for about 30 minutes each at 550 degrees. But ever since the shutdown, Malnati's has taken many of its pies straight from the oven to customer's doors. You can pick it up or get it delivered if you live in Chicago, or they have their frozen pies that they ship nationwide.

Marc: We blast-freeze those pizzas, so they're frozen in seconds. And when we ship them out, and we ship them out within a week of when we make them, they get to you across the country in great shape.

Sarah: My mom just sent me two frozen Lou Malnati's pizzas. It was, like, the best day of quarantine when that arrived in the mail. So, she sent a cheese one and a sausage one. And, honestly, that was my first time having it frozen and, you know, not fresh. And it was amazing. It tasted just like having it in the restaurant or just like having it for delivery.

Taryn: Because Malnati's is now relying on orders like these rather than dine-in service, Marc was forced to lay off much of his waitstaff.

Marc: Most of our service staff, our bartenders, our waitresses, our waiters, our busboys, aren't working. Some have picked up hours as drivers, but we've had to lay off a few hundred people.

Taryn: To help offset this, Marc upped employee discounts to 75% and started a staff fund for workers in need.

Marc: Our team can write in to us and say, "Hey, we're struggling to make ends meet right now. I'm home because my mom has COVID. Could you help us right now?" And we're sending checks out to our team. And hopefully we'll be able to keep that up, and hopefully this'll end quicker.

Taryn: And as for the rest of the locations, are they for the most part vowing to stay open? Is that the plan?

Marc: Yeah, we'll stay open for sure. I mean, as long as we can. But it is not the easiest thing in the world to operate a kitchen that is really busy on a Friday night and maintain social distancing. So my crew is getting better and better, and we've been healthy to this point. And I hope it stays that way. But it's a scary time. It's a crazy time.

Sarah: Lou Malnati's truly has a piece of my heart. So my hope for them is that they are able to weather this crisis and make it through. And I am willing to continue ordering frozen pizzas if that helps in any way.