stevez wrote:I'll be interested to hear what my dining companions have to say about their visit to Wells Brothers. Quite a few of them were making their maiden voyage.

While not my maiden voyage, I had a great time, I love Wells Brothers, they're still my gold standard for thin crust pizza. Like stevez the sausage and giardiniera is my go to pie, but I didn't know that he shared my ordering philosophy of 2 medium pies over one large one to maximize crust pieces and avoid soggy middles. The antipasto salad is one of the better versions served which is damning with faint praise, but it fulfills the needed greens requirement so I don't feel guilty about eating so much pizza. Boudreaulicious pointed out that one of the downsides of small square cut pieces is that you just keep eating without realizing how much you've put away. One reason the first round of pies might not have been as crispy as usual was that they sat for a bit while being photographed to the lovely photos stevez took

The dessert pies were a revelation to me, I've never ordered them before and the coconut custard was one of the best versions I've had. It was not too sweet with an abundance of flaked coconut and a really flakey crust.

Wells Brothers deserves to be a GNR.

Just to echo the above comments - Saturday's lunch was great. Thanks again to Steve for persuading me to try the sausage and giardiniera pizza. Totally awesome with just the right amount of heat. My dessert encounter with our server was priceless.

stevez wrote:It was a decent salad, perfectly in keeping with the aesthetic of Wells Brothers. It was almost entirely iceberg lettuce, pizza topping style pepperoni and shredded mozzarella...and tasty as hell. The house dressing was good, if a little sweet.

I see you mixed up your salad, but still it looks like you might've gotten shorted on the cheese. At Wells Brothers, it seems that the mark of a well made salad is not leaving any vegetation visible. Here's a "salad for three" I was naive enough to tackle with only two other people.



You can probably see a couple peperoncini and a sliver of tomato poking out from under the blanket of shredded mozzarella. The kitchen did their best to camouflage them with a heavy sprinkle of grated parmesan, but were only partly successful. I'm happy not all salads are made to Wells Brothers' specs, but I love a pound or two of their antipasto salad every now and then.

Been to Wells many times;always have a "Holy Moly that's good "moment after the first bite.For a Chicago area road trip you can't beat it;just far enough to get away but close enough to make it worth the drive.

Rene G wrote:I see you mixed up your salad, but still it looks like you might've gotten shorted on the cheese. At Wells Brothers, it seems that the mark of a well made salad is not leaving any vegetation visible.

No, actually our salad was served with the cheese yarmulke. I just mixed it up first so that it looked more like a salad and less like a cheese bowl.

stevez wrote:

Rene G wrote:I see you mixed up your salad, but still it looks like you might've gotten shorted on the cheese. At Wells Brothers, it seems that the mark of a well made salad is not leaving any vegetation visible.

No, actually our salad was served with the cheese yarmulke. I just mixed it up first so that it looked more like a salad and less like a cheese bowl.

Ah yes, the elusive kezkippah.

budrichard wrote:The best Wells pizza is a simple basil and cheese.

Basil on a midwest tavern-style pizza?! Never, ever saw anyone do that. I am sure it's good, but... it's just... wrong. I usually only get sausage on mine (well done) at Wells Bros.

Ram4 wrote:

budrichard wrote:The best Wells pizza is a simple basil and cheese.

Basil on a midwest tavern-style pizza?! Never, ever saw anyone do that. I am sure it's good, but... it's just... wrong. I usually only get sausage on mine (well done) at Wells Bros.

Surely you jest!

From wiki "A popular contemporary legend holds that the archetypal pizza, Pizza Margherita, was invented in 1889, when the Royal Palace of Capodimonte commissioned the Neapolitan pizzaiolo (pizza maker) Raffaele Esposito to create a pizza in honor of the visiting Queen Margherita. Of the three different pizzas he created, the Queen strongly preferred a pie swathed in the colors of the Italian flag: red (tomato), green (basil), and white (mozzarella). Supposedly, this kind of pizza was then named after the Queen as "Pizza Margherita",[15] although recent research casts doubt on this legend.[16]"
-Dick

I'm a regular at Wells Bros. since escaping to Racine from Chicago, 35 years ago. Had a great sausage pizza for dinner Wednesday night with a slice of banana cream pie. It's still as good today, as it was in 1980. Nothing and I mean nothing in the restaurant has changed in 35 years. The chairs are still rickety, the decor's still in a time warp, and the wait staff still retains some of the old timers. This makes for a great old pizzeria experience. If only Totero's were still open. Thank goodness we still have Kewpee's.

CSD

budrichard wrote:

Ram4 wrote:

budrichard wrote:The best Wells pizza is a simple basil and cheese.

Basil on a midwest tavern-style pizza?! Never, ever saw anyone do that. I am sure it's good, but... it's just... wrong. I usually only get sausage on mine (well done) at Wells Bros.

Surely you jest!

From wiki "A popular contemporary legend holds that the archetypal pizza, Pizza Margherita, was invented in 1889, when the Royal Palace of Capodimonte commissioned the Neapolitan pizzaiolo (pizza maker) Raffaele Esposito to create a pizza in honor of the visiting Queen Margherita. Of the three different pizzas he created, the Queen strongly preferred a pie swathed in the colors of the Italian flag: red (tomato), green (basil), and white (mozzarella). Supposedly, this kind of pizza was then named after the Queen as "Pizza Margherita",[15] although recent research casts doubt on this legend.[16]"
-Dick

At best, that's a mixed pizza metaphor. We're talking tavern style pizza here, not Neapolitan. If it ain't got sausage...well, you're probably not originally from around here.

budrichard wrote:The best Well's pizza is a simple basil and cheese.

Kidding, right?

Five or six years ago I was at Vito & Nicks with a well known Portland food centric fellow who shall remain nameless.

It was near kitchen close and our waitress was tired, slightly cranky and very much no nonsense. He orders a Margherita pizza, she looks blankly at him and he says Basil, Tomato, Cheese. I thought he was joking, but when I realized he was serious I said Bad Idea, they will not have fresh basil on hand.

He looks at her, says The basil is fresh, right? She says, sure honey, fresh as a flower. I strongly suggest otherwise, he overrides my objection. I order cheese, sausage, onion and garlic, well done and she is on her way.

Needless to say, his pizza comes out loaded with dried basil, is not tasty and he wants to call her on her mistake but, in the interest of not having the snot beaten out of us by a tired cranky 65-year-old woman, I suggest we share my pizza, pay and get on with our lives.

I dearly love Well's Brothers, but it would no more occur to me to order a fresh basil tomato pie there then an Italian beef and giardinara at Spacca Napoli.

We have ordered fresh basil on our pizza and they very nicely agreed to put it on after it came out of the oven. It works very well, with whatever other toppings you order. Yum...if you like fresh basil.

The reason the basil pizza is so good is that the basil is fresh and put under the cheese to keep it from crisping.
I don't eat 'Tavern Pizza', so I have no idea of what a Midwest Tavern Pizza is?
I have eaten a lot of pizza over the years at famous(most not so good) and small pizza places.
I even worked as a pizza maker during high-school at Frank & Pat's in Menasha Wis ( now Frank's Pizza Palace in Appleton andCrankyPat's elsewhere). I guess Frank and Pat must have had a falling out.
15 years ago we were at a class reunion and had a sausage pizza from Frank's Pizza Palace, very greasy but close to the old style of thin crust I was taught to make.
The simple fact of the matter is that this little non-des crept family owned and run place in Racine Wisconsin makes one of the best pizza's I have ever eaten and the basil & cheese is simply the best.
Well's may not have the publicity of a Burt's or Uno, but the pizza aside, it's a great place.-Dick

I was at Wells Brothers on Saturday presenting the GNR award.

Paula Wells Huck Receiving the GNR Award


Everyone there was pretty excited about getting the award, but they could really use our help over the summer months.

In an attempt to revitalize the area, the streets in front of the restaurant are going to be completely torn up starting in June and projected to remain that way for at least three months. The parking lot will remain open and accessible. The end result will be worth it, but in the meantime, the folks at Wells Brothers are a little concerned that their business will drop off due to the construction. What we can do to help is to plan a visit during the summer months and enjoy a pizza. Put Wells Brothers on your sumer road trip map and help a GNR stay in business.

stevez wrote:In an attempt to revitalize the area, the streets in front of the restaurant are going to be completely torn up starting in June and projected to remain that way for at least three months. The parking lot will remain open and accessible. The end result will be worth it, but in the meantime, the folks at Wells Brothers are a little concerned that their business will drop off due to the construction. What we can do to help is to plan a visit during the summer months and enjoy a pizza. Put Wells Brothers on your sumer road trip map and help a GNR stay in business.

Hmmm - perhaps another LTH outing might do the trick.

budrichard wrote:The reason the basil pizza is so good is that the basil is fresh and put under the cheese to keep it from crisping.
I don't eat 'Tavern Pizza', so I have no idea of what a Midwest Tavern Pizza is?
I have eaten a lot of pizza over the years at famous(most not so good) and small pizza places.
I even worked as a pizza maker during high-school at Frank & Pat's in Menasha Wis ( now Frank's Pizza Palace in Appleton andCrankyPat's elsewhere). I guess Frank and Pat must have had a falling out.
15 years ago we were at a class reunion and had a sausage pizza from Frank's Pizza Palace, very greasy but close to the old style of thin crust I was taught to make.
The simple fact of the matter is that this little non-des crept family owned and run place in Racine Wisconsin makes one of the best pizza's I have ever eaten and the basil & cheese is simply the best.
Well's may not have the publicity of a Burt's or Uno, but the pizza aside, it's a great place.-Dick

As Ralph Kramden once said, "Ah HA!" Then you have had what many call Midwest Tavern style pizza because that's exactly what Frank's Pizza Palace serves (I've been there - great pizza) and Wells Brothers serves. If you think basil works on that style of pizza, no problem. In fact, I bet it's probably great (I like basil on a Neapolitan or New York Neapolitan - never a gas oven NY slice though). But it's not what we all grew up with on the Chicago pizza scene. It's not normally used on any of our three styles (thin, deep dish, stuffed). I don't mind the basil being cooked on the pizza, it gives off a nice flavor. Coalfire puts it on fresh after it comes out. Either way works for me. I might consider doing basil at Wells Brothers as I'm a little curious now.

On a somewhat related note, this reminds me of when my Uncle took a friend of his to Marie's and his friend ordered spinach on a thin pizza. My Uncle was astonished and had to ridicule his friend. Now if you find offense to this, then you don't get it. It's a growing up in the streets tough guy thing. And as my Dad would have said "If you order spinach at Marie's, then you deserve to be ripped to shreds!"

Frank's and Well's pizza have absolutely zero in common except cheese, sauce and dough.
Frank's has a thick crust compared to Well's, Well's crust is crisp, very crisp, Frank's is not crisp and if they make the 'Special' as I was taught to make it at Frank and Pat's, then it's downright soggy.
At Frank and Pat's I was taught to give the pizza a once over of oil just before it goes into the oven but I suspect Frank's carries that to the extreme, the Pizza as very greasy.
Well's does NOT put the basil on the pizza, it's under the cheese and it's fresh basil.
I did not grow up on the streets, so obviously we have a different expectation of pizza and life in general.-Dick

budrichard wrote:Frank's and Well's pizza have absolutely zero in common except cheese, sauce and dough.
Frank's has a thick crust compared to Well's, Well's crust is crisp, very crisp, Frank's is not crisp and if they make the 'Special' as I was taught to make it at Frank and Pat's, then it's downright soggy.
At Frank and Pat's I was taught to give the pizza a once over of oil just before it goes into the oven but I suspect Frank's carries that to the extreme, the Pizza as very greasy.
Well's does NOT put the basil on the pizza, it's under the cheese and it's fresh basil.
I did not grow up on the streets, so obviously we have a different expectation of pizza and life in general.-Dick

What I mean to say is that Frank's and Wells Brothers are same pizza style. They are both thin, cut in squares Midwest (Chicago/Wisconsin) style pizza. Within this style are certainly various degress of thickness (but we're talking in millimeters here), but they are the same style. Frank's, Wells Bros, Mike & Angelo's, Zaffiro's, Maria's, Marie's, Vito and Nicks, Barnaby's, Villa Nova - all are under the same thin crust style of pizza. I completely follow you on the basil under the cheese. As some of us pointed out - that's a not normally ordered on this style, but you certainly have and love it and I bet it might be pretty good. And this horse has been beaten enough!

Guy Well's has passed.
Well's will be closed Wed & Thurs 9/23 & 9/24.
https://www.facebook.com/Wells-Brothers ... ?ref=br_rs
Guy had previously sold Well's to his daughter so I don't expect any changes.
We had to move our Wednesday Pizza night with friends who told me about his passing.
I am also told the recent construction around Well's is finished and you don't have to go through the alley anymore.-Richard

I had Wells Brothers twice in the last month (which is as many times in the last few years I think) and both times it was excellent. Definitely back on the radar and I finally took my girlfriend there after all these years and she loves it (both the food and the place).

My wife and I were up in Racine yesterday to visit my in-laws and we had an early dinner at Wells Brother.

Just to be upfront, I am from the East Coast and previously I didn't "get" Chicago-style thin crust, which I used to distain as a mere bar snack or Italian-style nachos. Even if the pizza was topped by excellent house-made sausage (e.g. LTH favorite Vito & Nick's), I thought that the complete sheeted crust was way too thin and crispy, and it didn't have the airy bread-like qualities that I treasured in artisanal East Coast and Neapolitan-style pies. Plus, I still think that most Chicago-style pies have a sauce that too cloyingly-sweet for my tastes (including the aforementioned Vito & Nick's pizzas).

However, I adore Wells Brother's pies. I especially appreciate the carmelized perimeter, which is a thin crust sibling of Bert's/Pequod's exteriors. The bottom of the pie was pebbly with tasty spots of char. The abundance of cornmeal was evident. The exterior pieces were all very crispy - I usually dislike, but it works well here as a component of the whole pie.

The house-made sausage was very tasty, and did not have an overpowering fennel flavor. The sauce was also spot-on, very savory and acidic and not too sweet. The peppers and onions were spot-on, with a hint of crunchiness.

All and all, Wells Brothers probably makes the Platonic ideal of Chicago-/tavern-style thin crust pizza.

Hear, hear! Had the pleasure of accompanying the LTH North Lunch bunch a few months ago up to Wells Brothers for my first foray, and the above posters are right. Best tavern-style pizza, hands-down. Crispy crust but with a good bit of chew as well. Fennel-y sausage but not overly so. And a great 70's-style tossed salad served in a big plastic opaque bowl.

Gotta do a road trip, either that or a stop on the way up to MKE.

ld111134 wrote: Plus, I still think that most Chicago-style pies have a sauce that too cloyingly-sweet for my tastes (including the aforementioned Vito & Nick's pizzas).

This is a surprising criticism to me. I'm not much for the "sugar sauce" style of pizza, but I never found V&N's to be particularly sweet. Or sweet at all, really. Maybe it's because I'm comparing to places like Palermo's and Aurelio's.

Binko wrote:

ld111134 wrote: Plus, I still think that most Chicago-style pies have a sauce that too cloyingly-sweet for my tastes (including the aforementioned Vito & Nick's pizzas).

This is a surprising criticism to me. I'm not much for the "sugar sauce" style of pizza, but I never found V&N's to be particularly sweet. Or sweet at all, really. Maybe it's because I'm comparing to places like Palermo's and Aurelio's.

V&N is not the most egregious offender in the sweetness department, it is still a bit too sweet for me.

I do like Wells Brothers, pizza and place, very much, in accordance with everything positive said about them both in this thread. But --- pet peeve alert --- I am going to nominate "Platonic ideal" for our next round of "expressions you wish were banned." Can something be perfect? Yes, I think so. Let's just say it's perfect. But if you can touch it and it's real (so real you can take home leftovers), it is by, by definition, not a Platonic ideal.

We were at Well's last Saturday also.
We always get a simple basil pizza which I think is the best thing on the menu. Hot from the oven, just can't get any better.
We always have a reservation but if the 2 or 3 seaters around the bar are open or at the bar, we sit there. Shorter wait for drinks.
$20 Tuesdays are great, extra large one topping pizza, french fries or breadsticks while you wait and 6 shorty beers on ice.
Throwback Thursdays are nice if they are featuring pizza for $8!-Richard

Katie wrote:I do like Wells Brothers, pizza and place, very much, in accordance with everything positive said about them both in this thread. But --- pet peeve alert --- I am going to nominate "Platonic ideal" for our next round of "expressions you wish were banned." Can something be perfect? Yes, I think so. Let's just say it's perfect. But if you can touch it and it's real (so real you can take home leftovers), it is by, by definition, not a Platonic ideal.

I did take a little literary license. I do think that Wells Brothers' pizza is as good as Chicago-/tavern-style thin crust pizza can get. That said, do I think that the best, "ideal" Chicago-style thin crust pizza is in the same league as the best (or even better) East Coast- or Neapolitan-style pizza? No. Not by a long shot.

After years of maligning my lot in life by accepting the fact that the far north suburbs & southern Wisconsin were never going to be able to produce the best in anything food-wise, I think that I can bury that sword of Damocles once and for all.

First, I can rate the jumbo fried shrimp at Captain Porky's in Wadsworth as tops. Better than The Fish Keg, better than Don's Dock. Done.

Finally, the LTH North Lunch (and now dinner) Group met this evening at Wells Brothers in Racine. Our second trip in the last couple years, and this sojourn just cemented in our minds that Wells Bros. does the tavern-style pizza the best way possible. They simply crank out great pies.

With the 70's-style salad accompanying, we ceased conversation when the pizzas arrived & hammered away at these works of art, admiring the crispy chew, the sparing but slightly-sweet sauce, and the slightly-burned crust with a sprinkle of cornmeal on the bottom.

Wells Brothers, I've been a fan but count me again!

Who would have thought that we couldn’t polish off three super pizzas plus a Merle Special?

If you go on a Wednesday, any two topping pizza is $10.
Cans of Hamm’s can be got for a $1!
We get a Basil/Pepperoni, 4 Hamm’’s and tip for $20!-Richard