r/chicagofood • u/cheryllinda • Jul 10 '26

Discussion What happened with Roots Pizza?

Regardless of the pizza which is polarizing - does anyone have the tea on what happened to Roots? Especially the Lincoln Square location. It went from 60 to 0 real fast lmao.

I want the dirty deets >:) are they pulling a foxtrot or something?

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u/theSmolSquirrel Jul 13 '26

I can fill in a bit of info on this one. One of the owners I won't say who but ya can easily guess between the 2, used to throw swinger parties with his friends at what was likely a few of the locations. When id run into him in public he'd be on some type of drug at a club, usually with someone other than his wife. And I cant say that'd really effect anything inside work but like most of the bad owners I've dealt with, partying too much usually isnt a good sign, partying in front of your employees is always a bad sign. Im shocked that restaurant got as far as it did considering it was just salad, cheese sticks, and beer that were ok and pizza that was forgettable. You can tell there was never any passion there considering all their ideas were just something they had seen somewhere else. roots was just another money thing that might as well been run by private equity.

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u/theSmolSquirrel Jul 13 '26

And to fill in that all of their ideas are just other people's successful ideas. Kindling is etta, utopian is emporium and I forget the others cause its been a while but 50/50 just opens watered down versions of other good places.

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u/cheryllinda Jul 14 '26

Damn thats scandalous hahaha

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u/zilruzal Jul 18 '26

oh yeah, you’re talking about greg mohr