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Pizzeria Da Nella Leaving Lincoln Park

By Ted Cox | September 6, 2017 11:52am | Updated on September 6, 2017 2:58pm
 Pizzeria Da Nella is leaving its original Lincoln Park location for Hyde Park.
Pizzeria Da Nella is leaving its original Lincoln Park location for Hyde Park.
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Joe Trost

LINCOLN PARK — Pizzeria Da Nella isn't expanding to Hyde Park. It's moving there. Which means the original location at 1443 W. Fullerton Ave. is now closed.

The Neapolitan pizza place posted on its window this week that its equipment was up for auction. Its website said it will be "relocating to Hyde Park" and thanked patrons for "five incredible years."

The Hyde Park outlet, in a new University of Chicago residence hall at 1125 E. 55th St., was announced late last year. It recently was slated to open Sept. 15.

But the closing of the original location came as a surprise.

"It was too much," said co-owner Frank Grassano. "We really just want to concentrate on Hyde Park. It's a real big opportunity for us."

Grassano said his wife, Nella Grassano, wanted to avoid the "back and forth" of operating places on both the North and South Side.

Nella Grassano, a native of Naples, Italy, had prided her restaurant on its traditional pizza cooked in a wood-burning oven. It was widely considered one of the best pizzerias in the city.

She opened the Lincoln Park location five years ago after changing Chicago's pizza landscape at Spacca Napoli, according to Reader restaurant critic Mike Sula.

But now devotees will have to go to Hyde Park to get it.