Pizza once sucked people into Chicago like a gigantic red tomato shaped magnet.

Back when everyone had regular jobs and no one had their hand stuck in your pocket grabbing at your health care; Chicago Style Pizza rivaled a trip to the Chicago museums, a walk down Michigan Avenue in the summer winds, and a stroll through marble floored, high ceilinged department stores where a little bell would regularly “ding” and exotic but slightly scary women caked with make-up would spritz musky colognes in your eyes if you didn’t watch out.

You’d get a deep dish pizza at one of the dark, wooden booths to top off your day and instantly be ready with an opinion on Chicago’s best pizza.

Little did you know that Chicago’s best pizza, whatever your opinion, didn’t hold an empty chianti bottle candle to a place 96 miles northwest of town.

There were the tourist places downtown, the cozy warm places tucked in the neighborhoods, the bars where you didn’t care if the pie tasted like a piece of tomato cardboard tossed in a microwave because you had other priorities and "Oh by the way, Can I get you ladies another round?”

All of that and unless you hopped on Highway 90 for a 90 minute trip to the northwest; you were still missing the mysterious best pizza ever.

And when I say “ever”---I mean more than a year or two.

I first tasted this pizza in front of a TV camera decades ago. Picture an early “Wayne’s World” broadcasting from a storefront cable studio on the most often deserted downtown Main Street of Beloit Wisconsin.

The coolest guy in school who was, and through one of the true blessings of my life—a stroke of good fortune that is beyond amazement—still is a big brother to me; had his own cable access show. Like a college dorm room that was always entertaining; I don’t remember everything he did. Played old movies, read comic books out loud, funny voices, the news. Whatever it was, I’m certain, and I should record this for history and so his wife won’t hurt me and his kids won’t laugh too hard: he was never, ever, ever dressed in a clown suit. Because clowns have always been creepy. And whatever he did, I know that Wayne and Garth were taking notes.

The one bit I remember for sure was having me come on camera and eat a pizza.

The success of the pizza place I’m sure had NOTHING to do with my lip smacking moans and yelps of delight. Even back then, the pizza was better than anything in Chicago.

The restaurant business both back then and now is brutally competitive. The stats on how many places fail every week are mind numbing. And nowhere is it more competitive than Chicago. Especially now.

Back then, when the four pound buckets of cheese, the Chicago deep dish pizzas were at the center of the business, there were chains that sprung up. Ones you don’t see so much anymore. And Chicago has moved beyond the cheese orgies to boast some of the world’s finest cuisine.

What’s tough about running a restaurant is that you can’t just be good. You have to be good every night. Every night. I’ve never been a banker. But I have worked in a whole lot of big corporations and been a bartender, and I’m married to a former waitress. And I’m guessing that a banker can have a bad day and still get paid. We couldn’t. In this business the pressure to be good every night is always there.

Beyond the discipline of always being good, you dig a bit into what makes a restaurant good and you’ll almost always find family. Might be blood, might not. That doesn’t matter. What matters are the bonds that feel like family. At the pizza place in Beloit, Tony, always in white, always in motion, always ready for the rowdy college kids stumbling in; Tony is long gone. But when the place left the tiny red brick bastion that kept us all so warm against that wicked and cleansing Wisconsin wind and moved across the street to more spacious quarters; his daughter ran the business.

This weekend we stopped by on our way back from a tiny town up in Wisconsin and bought an extra large with the works. Half cooked. So we could finish it off at home. It was $16.00.

And it was still the world’s best pizza. Why? Maybe the same reason any dish is good. Stuff that sounds simple but isn’t. The fresh ingredients. The lightness of the crust. And more than anything---the balance. That was it. The balance.

I didn’t know about balance way back then. I just liked the pizza. Didn’t catch on how in was balanced. Like some kind of symphony where every musician comes through clear and pure.

So, what’s the world’s best pizza? The name of the place is Domenicos. If you pass thru Beloit, you’ll find it.

Maybe you have a place you like better.

Maybe you even know the secret of great  pizza.

The secret of great pizza is this: the second you wake up the next morning. The very second you open your eyes, your very first thoughts are:

1. How many pieces are left in the refrigerator?

2. How many are mine?

3. How quick can I get to the kitchen to have it for breakfast?