From Merchant Marine to World’s Best Pizza: Chef Robert Garvey on Crafting the Perfect Crust

[01:00:00:00 - 01:00:04:23]
 (Music)

[01:00:08:12 - 01:00:54:20]
Sylvia
 When it comes to pizzas, many say the secret is in the sauce. Not so for the celebrated Robert's Pizza, founded by New York transplant Robert Garvey and his wife Dana. The restaurant's artisanal pizza was recently named one of the best in the world. So what makes it so special? Chef Robert says it's all about the crust. An origin story that takes us back a quarter century. His beloved restaurant in Streeterville navigated the turbulent waters of the COVID-19 pandemic, a success that makes sense when you learn the man in charge has a history on the high seas, who knew? On today's Supper with Sylvia, I speak to Chef Robert Garvey about how a former merchant marine and hot dog vendor became one of Chicago's most iconic pizzaiolos.

[01:00:54:20 - 01:00:58:06]
 (Music)

[01:00:59:15 - 01:01:05:17]
Sylvia
 Okay, Robert Garvey, so nice to have you on. You know, I love your pizza, but who doesn't, right?

[01:01:07:04 - 01:01:07:05]
 (Laugh)

[01:01:08:07 - 01:01:12:05]
Robert
 Fortunately, most people do, which is great. So thank you very much. I appreciate that.

[01:01:12:05 - 01:01:19:23]
Sylvia
 Yeah, you know, it was so funny. I have to tell everybody, I've always loved Robert's Pizza. You guys have been around for how long now? Five years?

[01:01:19:23 - 01:01:31:16]
Robert
 We opened up just before, I like to put it in context. We opened up just before the pandemic. So nine months before the pandemic, we opened our doors, which now, believe it or not, is almost six years, six years in June.

[01:01:31:16 - 01:01:32:19]
Sylvia
 Congratulations.

[01:01:32:19 - 01:01:40:13]
Robert
 So those first three years were quite a struggle, you know, but we made it through. And now things have really turned around.

[01:01:40:13 - 01:01:51:23]
Sylvia
 Yeah, let's talk about that. So I wanted to talk to Robert in the past to begin with, but the reason I really thought I'd need to get you on immediately is because I was in your place

[01:01:53:02 - 01:02:01:03]
Sylvia
 for a special tasting menu just last month or a couple of months ago, Robert, when we did the Orient Express menu, right?

[01:02:01:03 - 01:02:02:04]
Robert
 Yes.

[01:02:02:04 - 01:02:22:15]
Sylvia
 And it was so good. And I remember my friends and I were eating this food, and it was more than just pizza, although the pizza was really special. Everything about it was so beautifully done. And we kept saying, we can't believe we're getting this food in a pizza restaurant. That is not an insult, Robert. I mean, you blew our minds. It was amazing.

[01:02:22:15 - 01:02:24:16]
Robert
 Well, thank you. And, you know,

[01:02:25:16 - 01:02:46:10]
Robert
 obviously making great pizza is critically important. And, you know, our cheese pizza, sausage, pepperoni, those are our big sellers. But we really like to push the culinary envelope and really kind of think about what we can do with a pizza. You know, as I often say, it's great food on a great crust. We just happen to call it pizza.

[01:02:47:10 - 01:02:56:00]
Robert
 And so whenever I go out to dinner, if I have a great dish that I really love, I'm like, how can I make a pizza out of that?

[01:02:56:00 - 01:02:59:10]
Sylvia
 I love that. So you just turn everything you love into a pizza.

[01:02:59:10 - 01:03:19:23]
Robert
 That's true. When we first opened, we had a much bigger menu because I was concerned that the size of the restaurant was too big just to fill it with pizza. So we had steak, we had chicken, and we had fish, and we had great appetizers like bone marrow and things like that. And they were terrific, and people loved them. But everybody just kept coming and said, well, we want Robert's pizza.

[01:03:19:23 - 01:03:20:11]
Advertisement
 Yeah.

[01:03:20:11 - 01:03:31:10]
Robert
 So what we did was we took that culinary creativity and turned it and put it on the pizza instead of creating separate dishes. We now kind of focus on making these great pizzas.

[01:03:31:10 - 01:04:06:19]
Sylvia
 Yeah, and you do that and so much more. And while I was in there, you were talking about the decor. And then he kind of just slips in there casually that he used to be a merchant marine, and I said, what? Okay, so we've got to talk about your background because I say this podcast is kind of a food-centric podcast, but it's actually the stories behind the food that bring this to life. And I think your background story is so fascinating. Let's just start with how many years it took you to perfect your pizza, because I understand it really kind of all started in your kitchen, right?

[01:04:07:20 - 01:04:25:08]
Robert
 That's correct, yeah. So I moved here from New York City almost 30 years ago now. And back in, I had never made a pizza before coming to Chicago. And back in New York, I had a slice-a-day habit. And people are always asking me, why am I in the business? And it's really pretty simple. It's because I was hungry.

[01:04:26:19 - 01:04:52:12]
Robert
 I thought I didn't like Chicago pizza. I think Chicago pizza is great, but it wasn't on every corner. I mean, I was used to passing a good pizzeria every two or three blocks. So for me, every afternoon, I had a slice. So I figured, well, it can't be that difficult to make pizza. So I made a few pizzas at home, and they were pretty bad. I made a few more, and they were worse. And then I got obsessed. And it took me eight years of truly obsessive baking.

[01:04:53:12 - 01:05:10:18]
Robert
 Hundreds of recipes, I picked up thousands of pies. And then I just went into this long series of improvisations, and just improving. And I sort of just continued to test and test and test. It really came up with something I think that is unique to us. You know, it really is Robert's Pizza.

[01:05:10:18 - 01:05:13:20]
Sylvia
 Yeah, describe it to people who never had it before.

[01:05:13:20 - 01:05:47:09]
Robert
 So it's a thin crust pie. It's got a beautiful cornichoni on it. The pizza is both crunchy and chewy at the same time. And we cook it so we get a little bit of a black char on it. And the reason why we put the black char on it is it's not burning the pizza. It is actually caramelizing the natural sugars in the flour. And when that happens, you get a different flavor in the crust. So if we put out just a nice brown pizza, it's a good pizza. But if you can do that little bit of black char on it, it really turns it from a good pizza to a great pizza.

[01:05:47:09 - 01:05:57:22]
Sylvia
 OK. And it is the crust to me. You know, a lot of people say the secret is the sauce. I mean, your sauce is delicious. But it's the crust to me that really stands out.

[01:05:59:00 - 01:06:00:09]
Sylvia
 How do you describe that crust?

[01:06:01:15 - 01:06:04:05]
Robert
 So the crust is-- you know, the crust is--

[01:06:05:21 - 01:06:31:06]
Robert
 it just has this artisan bread flavor to it. That has to do with the fermentation. So one of the things I did when I first started making pizza was create a wild yeast sourdough starter. So my pizza is actually a truly a Chicago pizza. Because there's wild yeast in the air. And you capture that wild yeast using flour and water. So 25 years ago in Chicago, I captured some of that Chicago wild yeast.

[01:06:31:06 - 01:06:32:00]
Sylvia
 I love that.

[01:06:32:00 - 01:07:05:14]
Robert
 Created the starter just with flour and water over-- not a six to eight week period is what it takes to do it. But once it blooms, you have this beautiful living starter. And there's the ruck. It's alive. So you have to feed it. So it's not much, just flour and water. But it's every day. So believe it or not, I managed to feed that starter in my kitchen for the last 20, 25 years. And it's the base of the recipe. So it really does make it, in my opinion, really makes it a Chicago pizza. In addition to that, I do two day ferment on all the dough. And that's what gives it that great artisan bread flavor.

[01:07:05:14 - 01:07:23:11]
Sylvia
 Oh, so good. So let's back up a little bit here, because a little bit about your history. As I said, I was surprised to see you were a merchant marine. So I understand you have an engineering degree. Tell me what you did in the merchant marines. That was the thing that shocked me when you told me that.

[01:07:24:13 - 01:07:44:02]
Robert
 So I went to a merchant marine academy down in Baltimore. And I graduated as a marine engineer. And what that allows you to do is run cargo ships. So I ran freighters, tankers, brake bulk ships, et cetera. So what I would do at sea is I would run the engine rooms.

[01:07:45:04 - 01:07:55:15]
Robert
 So we had a crew of about 25, 25 crew members. So running these huge 600 to 1,000 foot vessels and really sailing all over the world,

[01:07:56:17 - 01:08:14:17]
Robert
 both steam and diesel engines. And as I used to describe-- I described that job, it's the way I would describe it to people is basically go outside, start your car, open the hood, jump inside the engine, could warm and close the hood, and then sit in there for about eight to 12 hours.

[01:08:14:17 - 01:08:16:02]
Sylvia
 Oh, that sounds like fun.

[01:08:17:22 - 01:08:50:10]
Robert
 So I was in an engine room where the diesel engines are 30,000 horsepower. They're three stories tall. A piston is three foot in diameter. You can actually get inside the piston, the cylinders. And they're just amazing pieces of equipment. It's kind of a little bit like Flintstones. I mean, I literally had three foot wrenches and a ladder inside the crankcase to climb onto to get up to the connecting rod of the engine. So it was a lot of fun.

[01:08:50:10 - 01:08:55:22]
Sylvia
 OK, that's crazy. But how do you go from that to making pizza? What was the transition there?

[01:08:55:22 - 01:09:37:18]
Robert
 So I was always obsessed with food. So not so much that I like to cook, but I really love to eat. And back in the day, I had my own hot dog wagon back in New York City when I was a kid. And I thought, as a kid, I was going to make a killing selling hot dogs. And I went down to Battery Park with my wagon and soon found out that every corner in New York is controlled and couldn't sell my hot dogs. So I ended up at CBGBs selling hot dogs in front of CBGBs back in the late 70s. Joey Ramone used to sleep on the hood of my car many nights on Friday and Saturday nights.

[01:09:37:18 - 01:09:38:17]
Sylvia
 From the Ramones.

[01:09:40:02 - 01:09:40:02]
 (Laughter)

[01:09:40:02 - 01:09:40:07]
Robert
 Yes.

[01:09:42:00 - 01:09:49:13]
Robert
 So the reason I bring that up is I used to spread hot dogs. They would give us a can of onions, which I couldn't stand.

[01:09:50:15 - 01:10:34:17]
Robert
 So literally before I went out, I made my own fresh onions before I went out on the stand, just so that when I was working, I could smell these great onions and really enjoy the hot dogs. So I became known as this hot dog vendor that had these fresh onions back in the day. So I did that. It was kind of my first foray into food, obviously in the merchant marine. But I always liked to cook. I always took the time to make really simple but high quality dishes. And I think that kind of carries into the restaurant. I'm not really looking-- I mean, the dinners that we talked about, they're pretty fancy. But in general, I like to create simple, very high quality food that can be eaten every day.

[01:10:37:04 - 01:10:39:03]
Robert
 So anyway, I was in the merchant marine,

[01:10:40:11 - 01:10:42:21]
Robert
 which I did that because I wanted to--

[01:10:43:23 - 01:10:48:06]
Robert
 it kind of helped me get through the rest of my college career, as I call it.

[01:10:49:13 - 01:11:18:16]
Robert
 And what was nice about the merchant marine is I could work three, four months and then take anywhere from six to eight months off. So I used to work the summers and then go to school in the winter. So I went to the New School for Social Research, and I had a bachelor's degree in liberal arts, philosophy, and writing. And then after that, I decided that I wanted to write plays and get involved in theater. So I went-- I have an MFA in playwriting from Carnegie Mellon.

[01:11:18:16 - 01:11:20:20]
Sylvia
 As one does. This is crazy.

[01:11:22:10 - 01:11:55:20]
Robert
 Why not? And while we were there, my wife, Dan, and I started and ran a multimedia performance space called the Birmingham Loft. And we did everything from dance and music, theater, poetry. Basically, if you were an artist in Pittsburgh back in the early 90s, late 80s, early 90s, and you wanted to be on stage or do a performance, you did it with us. And it was very exciting, just kind of a lot of fun, that all the energy that we generated and just being around all those artists.

[01:11:57:20 - 01:12:02:04]
Sylvia
 So backing up here, so a college student selling hot dogs,

[01:12:03:06 - 01:12:06:00]
Sylvia
 merchant Marines, and then you're a playwright.

[01:12:07:09 - 01:12:10:22]
Sylvia
 And then somewhere, this whole pizza thing begins, right?

[01:12:10:22 - 01:12:16:16]
Robert
 Right. So my wife and I, we came to Chicago to run a family business.

[01:12:18:00 - 01:12:28:16]
Robert
 It was a hospitality business, actually, down in the British Virgin Islands. And that's the reason we came here. But we would go back and forth from Chicago to the BVI.

[01:12:30:09 - 01:12:46:12]
Robert
 And that's really when I was kind of missing the New York street corner pizzeria. And that's when I started trying to develop a slice of pizza that I would love. And it really just became, it was just a hobby. It was an obsession.

[01:12:47:22 - 01:12:56:13]
Robert
 And then, now, of course, we have the restaurant. I always say, whenever I tell this story is, be careful what you focus on.

[01:12:57:16 - 01:13:07:23]
Robert
 Because I had no intention, really no intention of being in the pizza business. But suddenly, we realized we had something special. And so we jumped into this.

[01:13:07:23 - 01:13:18:05]
Sylvia
 And that's incredible, because you had no intention. And now, you've been voted one of the top 50 pizzas. Is it just in the USA? I think you have a ranking in the world, too, though, don't you?

[01:13:18:05 - 01:13:22:01]
Robert
 Yeah, in fact, there's one right there behind me.

[01:13:23:20 - 01:13:24:22]
Sylvia
 So this is-- Tell me about that.

[01:13:24:22 - 01:13:43:17]
Robert
 This is 50 Top Pizzas. It's an organization out of Naples, Italy. And they rank pizzas all around the world. First, they do it by country. And then they take the best of those and put them into the top 100 of the world. So in the US this year, we came in at number 10.

[01:13:43:17 - 01:13:44:20]
Sylvia
 Wow.

[01:13:44:20 - 01:13:47:02]
Robert
 They invited us. How about that?

[01:13:48:08 - 01:13:48:15]
Sylvia
 Incredible.

[01:13:48:15 - 01:13:52:22]
Robert
 There's over 75,000, I think, pizzerias in the US alone.

[01:13:54:03 - 01:13:55:10]
Robert
 It's really quite an honor.

[01:13:57:12 - 01:14:20:13]
Robert
 And then they selected us to be one of the top 100 pizzas of the world. And they invited us over to Naples, Italy. And it was just a great event. And we went to downtown Naples on an opera stage with a string quartet playing. They gave out the awards. It was sort of like the Academy Awards. It really was a lot of fun.

[01:14:20:13 - 01:14:26:08]
Sylvia
 Oh my gosh, that sounds incredible. I mean, think about that. In the world and number 10,

[01:14:27:11 - 01:14:35:01]
Sylvia
 what is it you think that makes yours stand out, especially in a town where pizza is king?

[01:14:36:07 - 01:14:42:09]
Robert
 I think there's a lot of factors going to it. I think the pizza is unique.

[01:14:43:09 - 01:14:52:17]
Robert
 There's no one that's quite doing the pizza that we are doing. But I think the bigger issue is the amount of care and time that we spend with our food.

[01:14:54:07 - 01:14:57:06]
Robert
 We do hours and hours of prep every day.

[01:14:58:09 - 01:14:59:15]
Robert
 I have an incredible team.

[01:15:00:21 - 01:15:46:17]
Robert
 In fact, most of the team has been with-- probably 50%, 60% of the team has been with us since we reopened after COVID. So they've now been there almost four or five years. And it's that longevity, the strength of the team. And my guests are always telling me how they can tell-- they really like our staff. And they can tell that they like working at Roberts, that it really comes through, that our staff is happy. And kind of creating a cohesive, friendly, supportive working environment, I think, is what really makes us truly stand out in the Chicago market. I mean, there's a lot of great pizzas in Chicago. And I think we have our own little sort of unique corner

[01:15:47:19 - 01:15:49:07]
Robert
 down here in Streeterville.

[01:15:49:07 - 01:16:02:13]
Sylvia
 Yeah, and I love that you call it still Chicago style because you captured it with the yeast and everything. So is there a pizza that inspired you from a certain region that-- or did you take a little bit of everything?

[01:16:03:18 - 01:16:04:13]
Robert
 You know, when I was--

[01:16:05:15 - 01:16:16:09]
Robert
 back in the days when I was obsessing about it, I really learned to make very many different styles. I could do the deep dish. I could do the Detroit pizza, Sicilian pizza, classic New York pizza.

[01:16:17:12 - 01:16:45:10]
Robert
 And I played with all those recipes. And what those recipes really taught me is why my recipe is different and also why it does what it does. So there were a number of people that I've talked to about pizza and kind of listened to them about what they do. And then I would come home and put their techniques and their ingredients and their process into my recipe. And I would say, oh, I would always say, that's interesting.

[01:16:46:13 - 01:17:12:04]
Robert
 But it would really deepen my knowledge of the product that we serve. And by doing all those tests and all those other recipes, it really created an environment for us that we can be consistent. So I know exactly what my dough is doing. If there's a problem, I can see it immediately. I know where the mistake was made. And I can correct it on the fly.

[01:17:13:11 - 01:17:27:01]
Robert
 But it was like by studying all these different styles, it allows me that kind of really deep knowledge to keep our pizza consistent. And that really, to me, is the key to being successful in the restaurant business is consistency.

[01:17:27:01 - 01:17:28:04]
Sylvia
 So true.

[01:17:28:04 - 01:17:54:00]
Robert
 That I talk to my staff all the time. The idea is to meet expectations, but also beat them. It's really critical that your restaurant meets the expectation that your guests coming to the door have about what they're expecting. And then we try to go beyond that. But it's the consistency, it's the team, it's the environment. We have an incredible location.

[01:17:54:00 - 01:17:59:10]
Sylvia
 Yeah, you are in a great location, right? On that dock there, on the water, nothing beats it in the summertime.

[01:18:00:22 - 01:18:02:06]
Sylvia
 And we'll be right back.

[01:18:04:16 - 01:18:10:21]
Advertisement
 At Marianos, we love how every product has a story. And some of the best stories come from right here in Chicago.

[01:18:10:21 - 01:18:18:13]
Advertisement
 That's why we started We Love Local. It's our way of shining a light on small businesses and farmers and food makers who pour their hearts into what they do.

[01:18:18:13 - 01:18:24:21]
Advertisement
 When you see a local item on our shelves, you know you're supporting someone's dream and keeping our community strong.

[01:18:24:21 - 01:18:34:13]
Advertisement
 From family recipes passed down for generations to brand new ideas born in neighborhood kitchens, We Love Local brings those stories to your table because when local thrives, we all do.

[01:18:34:13 - 01:18:38:02]
Advertisement
 Marianos is a proud sponsor of the Supper with Sylvia podcast.

[01:18:39:06 - 01:18:46:05]
Sylvia
 I have to ask you, since you said you love to make a pizza into one of your favorite foods, what's the craziest pizza you've ever made?

[01:18:47:14 - 01:18:50:08]
Robert
 Well, that's actually a good question.

[01:18:52:05 - 01:18:54:17]
Robert
 Oh, so here's a great story. Okay.

[01:18:56:03 - 01:19:22:01]
Robert
 Years ago, when I first started making pizzas, my nieces were young. They were probably between six and 12 years old. And we were up on a family vacation up in Vermont and they call me Bob or Uncle Bob. And they say, "Hey, Uncle Bob, can we," I said, "Can we make any pizza you want?" I said, "Any pizza you want?" They said, "Yes." I said, "Any pizza you want, we can make it." And they all screamed, "Let's make an ice cream pizza." And I was like, "Okay."

[01:19:23:01 - 01:19:28:20]
Robert
 All right, let me think about this. So I took the girls to the ice cream store

[01:19:29:20 - 01:19:51:20]
Robert
 and I took the girls to the ice cream store and got all the candy. And they got candy and ice cream. And then we came back and we made the crust and we piled on the ice cream and we piled on the candy and we piled on the whipped cream and the slice was probably about this thick. And of course they were all insisted that I take the first bite. And I was like, "No."

[01:19:53:07 - 01:20:11:22]
Robert
 So I took that first bite and I got through the candy and the cream. When I got the ice cream and the crust, and I was like, "Oh, wait a minute. There's something going on here that I was not expecting." And what happened was that the vanilla ice cream, caramelized on the crust,

[01:20:13:00 - 01:20:19:21]
Robert
 turned the crust into an ice cream cone like a cracker. Wow. And it was, it's absolutely delicious.

[01:20:19:21 - 01:20:21:02]
Advertisement
 I love that.

[01:20:21:02 - 01:20:25:19]
Robert
 Caramelized vanilla on that crust. I was like, "Oh my God, girls, this is amazing."

[01:20:27:21 - 01:20:48:18]
Robert
 We call it the Garvey Girls Pizza. And we do it for, if you do, we don't do it, we do it for special occasions if it's requested. We do that. And it's just to put, I never really thought that the ice cream would do that to the crust. And it was just such an incredible surprise. So basically just never know what's going to happen.

[01:20:48:18 - 01:21:07:04]
Sylvia
 Right, that's a great story. And who knows, maybe you learn a little from that technique to try on some of the other ones. Okay, I wanna ask you, when you're not working, because I know you work a lot, and you wanna go out to eat, what are some of your favorite spots in Chicago? Or do you have one go-to restaurant that's kind of your comfort that you love to go to?

[01:21:08:12 - 01:21:29:23]
Robert
 You know, that's a good question. I really love the duck in. I love the food Kevin Hickey's doing down at the duck in. We go down there pretty regularly. In fact, we were just there on Sunday night. And he does such a great job. I mean, his hot dogs are incredible, and the duck is incredible. And it's just a really cool environment.

[01:21:31:00 - 01:21:43:01]
Robert
 And there's a good example of meeting and beating expectations. You go down there, it's very casual, but the food there is just really pretty extraordinary.

[01:21:43:01 - 01:21:51:22]
Sylvia
 And Kevin is extraordinary, isn't he? As a matter of fact, he's my next guest for my next podcast. So we have a mutual admiration society for him.

[01:21:52:22 - 01:21:55:07]
Robert
 Okay, so-- He does like my pizza too.

[01:21:55:07 - 01:22:01:02]
Sylvia
 Oh, of course he does. Yeah, I'll have to tell him that we talked. So what's up next for Robert's Pizza?

[01:22:02:08 - 01:22:20:04]
Robert
 So we have a big dinner coming up. It's a Latin American inspired dinner. And as I mentioned, these dinners are all about like pushing the envelope as to what you think you can have on a pizza. And then this dinner, so for these dinners, we do three of them a year.

[01:22:21:04 - 01:22:33:09]
Robert
 Everything is new, we've never served it before. And we create, we do an appetizer, a dessert, and we create three brand new pizzas. So the first pizza is a crab and scallop pizza.

[01:22:34:11 - 01:22:40:09]
Robert
 And then the second pizza we're gonna do is a Conchita Pibil, which is pulled pork with habanero salsa.

[01:22:40:09 - 01:22:40:22]
Sylvia
 Wow.

[01:22:40:22 - 01:22:46:03]
Robert
 Third pizza is a sato with char grilled short rib.

[01:22:46:03 - 01:22:46:21]
Advertisement
 Wow.

[01:22:46:21 - 01:22:51:22]
Robert
 Just three really incredible dinners and we pair them up with wine and cocktails.

[01:22:53:10 - 01:22:57:18]
Robert
 So that's fact, that's this week. And it's just, it's gonna be a great dinner.

[01:22:57:18 - 01:23:12:05]
Sylvia
 The last one was awesome. Okay, but as far as the future of Robert's, because you guys have just gone gangbusters in the short time that you have been open. Any plans to expand, maybe go other places? What are you thinking about?

[01:23:12:05 - 01:23:28:03]
Robert
 Well, you know, the first, as I mentioned, the first two or three years were extremely difficult. And the last two years, we have just blown up. So we went from not knowing what to do with ourselves to like really struggling to keep up with demand.

[01:23:29:09 - 01:23:49:03]
Robert
 So at this point, we're getting a good sense of what it means to run a restaurant of this size and keep the quality up and keep the experience where it is. So I think the next six months or so, this is the time where we're really gonna think about what our next step is,

[01:23:50:07 - 01:24:01:15]
Robert
 whether we just continue to focus on this, whether we expand. I think we would do very well if we expanded. I know that my pizza or our pizza can be,

[01:24:03:04 - 01:24:06:08]
Robert
 we definitely can expand and produce the same quality that we do.

[01:24:07:18 - 01:24:12:17]
Robert
 So I think it's something that we're now thinking about and we haven't made that decision yet.

[01:24:12:17 - 01:24:47:01]
Sylvia
 Oh, okay. So maybe we have something to look forward to in Chicago. And for those of you who do not live in Chicago, I highly recommend you go to Robert's. It's good year round, but it's especially fun in the summertime. You're right on that boat dock, sitting outside on a beautiful Chicago summer day. And might I add, your cocktails are incredible too. So it's just a great overall package. Robert, thank you so much for doing this with us today. And I'll be back out there soon and just keep on doing what you're doing. The pizza's amazing.

[01:24:47:01 - 01:24:50:21]
Robert
 Well, thanks. I really appreciate that. It's always good to see you.

[01:24:50:21 - 01:24:51:20]
Sylvia
 Good to see you too.

[01:24:52:22 - 01:25:05:11]
Sylvia
 This podcast is produced by Jane Stevens and Jennifer Waters, original music and audio engineering, Donnie Cutting, social media, Magali Blasdell, promotions and marketing, Julie Lokun and The Mediacasters.

[01:25:05:11 - 01:25:07:21]
 (Upbeat Music)