The New SKU
Home Run Inn Pizza, the Chicago-based family operator credited with founding the tavern-style thin-crust category, has launched its first-ever frozen Pan Pizza — a 9-inch thicker-crust SKU now hitting shelves at Chicagoland Jewel and Tony's Fresh Market locations. The move marks the brand's most significant frozen-aisle extension in its nearly 80-year retail history.
The Pan Pizza ships in five varieties — Cheese, Sausage, Sausage Pepperoni, Meat Lovers, and Pepperoni — built on the same all-natural ingredient platform as the brand's original tavern-style line, featuring freshly sliced mozzarella and a proprietary tomato sauce developed from a family recipe. Dan Costello, CEO and fourth-generation family member, called the launch a natural extension of the brand's scratch-made identity. "Our new Pan Pizza offers customers another delicious way to enjoy the Home Run Inn flavor they know and love, now with a thicker crust," Costello said.
Channel & Competitive Context
The frozen pizza segment remains one of retail foodservice's most competitive ambient categories, with volume concentrated among a handful of national brands. Home Run Inn currently ranks in the top 10 nationally for frozen pizza sales and holds the number-one position in the Chicagoland DMA — a stronghold the new Pan SKU is designed to deepen. Regional brand equity, combined with expanded crust-format range, is a defensible positioning play as larger national players compete primarily on price and promotional frequency.
Expanding SKU count at retail also broadens the brand's footprint without adding restaurant units. Home Run Inn operates six Chicagoland pizzerias, maintains frozen distribution coast-to-coast, and holds the Official Pizza designation at Wrigley Field — a visibility platform that keeps the brand in front of a mass consumer audience. The Pan Pizza launch leverages that brand awareness into a daypart and usage occasion — family meal, weekend dinner — where thicker-crust formats have historically driven stronger basket attachment in the frozen aisle.
The In-Restaurant Driver
To bridge the restaurant and retail channels, Home Run Inn is running "Free Pizza Fridays" at all six of its restaurant locations every Friday throughout November. Guests who purchase any extra-large cheese or sausage pizza for dine-in or carryout receive one free frozen Pan Pizza with their order. The promotion is a direct trial-generation mechanism — moving the new frozen SKU through the restaurant unit base rather than relying solely on in-store merchandising, a cross-channel tactic increasingly common among regional pizza operators expanding their retail presence.
The strategy reflects a broader trend among independent and regional chains that have found frozen retail to be a scalable, asset-light revenue stream that extends brand reach without franchisee development costs or the unit-economics complexity of new restaurant construction. For Home Run Inn — a family-owned operator with limited physical footprint — frozen distribution continues to function as the primary growth vehicle beyond its six existing locations.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
