West of Chicago Pizza Company to open full-service restaurant in West Seattle in 2022

Lovers of deep-dish Chicago-style pizza will have a new Seattle brick and mortar to add to their list in the new year. 

West of Chicago Pizza Company in West Seattle is expanding from its small pick-up window at the KBM Seattle Commissary Kitchen on Delridge to a full-service restaurant in the Alaska Junction.

The new 75-seat space, formerly occupied by Chaco Canyon Organic Café which closed its doors in August of 2020, will serve appetizers, salads, and entrees along with some new menu items. 

Founded by Shawn Millard, West of Chicago Pizza Company takes its inspiration from the Windy City. Since its opening as a pick-up window, the one-man operation has been slinging ‘zas for hungry patrons, only accepting 40 orders per day, four days a week, 

But Millard is finally ready to expand his business which includes hiring more staff members, creating new menu items, offering full-service dining and possibly opening for lunch.

“We’re going to push ourselves as being a place you can go watch Chicago Bears games, get Chicago food and drink Chicago beer,” Millard told the SeattlePI.

Millard is planning to deck the new place out in Chicago memorabilia. “I’ve got a friend who is from Chicago and he’s been collecting lots of Chicago-related stuff over the years,” Millard said. “He actually opened up his collection to me, so that’s going to be really awesome.”

Coming from a long history in the kitchen, Millard brings over 25 years of experience from big cities like San Francisco and D.C. He and his wife moved to Seattle to raise their kids, and after making pizza for friends, Millard was pushed to start his pizza business.

“When [my friend’s wife] had a baby, I sent them a pizza, and after a few days he said, ‘So when are you going to open up a pizza place?’ That was three years ago and now it’s happening,” Millard said.

Millard plans on hiring at least 10 staff members to start but has high expectations of who joins his team. He says, “Making the food is the easy part, anybody can do it. It’s putting it all together and forming a team that works as a team and having them share the same passion that you have for food, that’s the most important thing.”

He also has hopes of doing weekend lunches in the future but says he needs to “feel out the demand for dinner service” before bringing on more team members to cover additional hours.

The new space has a large room that Millard plans to use for regular dining, but says will also be available to rent for parties. West of Chicago Pizza Company also plans to offer a catering service.

As part of growing his business, Millard says some new additions will be made to the menu. While non-natives to Chicago may consider the deep-dish pies to be the city’s staple, Millard argues that locals actually opt for thin-crust, tavern-style pizzas. In order to truly reflect the culture of Chicago, Millard is adding an Italian beef tavern-style pizza to his menu.

“There’s an institution in Chicago called Vito and Nick’s and they do an Italian beef thin-crust pizza, it’s killer, and I’m going to be doing that pizza with my twist on it. It’s phenomenal.”

While Millard doesn’t have an exact opening date yet, he is hoping to open his doors at the bottom of the Link Apartment building at 3770 S.W. Alaska Street by March. 

“My whole goal was to get to the point where I had the customer base and everything like that to get the brick and mortar,” Millard said. “So this is like, you know, realizing my dreams.”