Scott Butler’s mission for the past three years has been to own a Rosati’s Chicago Pizza restaurant, but for the 60-year-old father, eating at the pizzeria is a lifelong tradition.
“I’ve been eating pizza and spaghetti at Rosati’s since I was eight years old,” he said. “When I was a kid, it was our favorite pizzeria.”
So it was only natural for the Chicago native to acquire the franchise rights to Rosati’s restaurant in Maricopa, 21423 N. John Wayne Pkwy., Suite 102, when it came up for sale in 2021.
“I knew Rosati’s very well, the quality of the pizza and the history of the company,” Butler said. “When the opportunity arose, I didn’t hesitate. I just immediately decided to continue the franchise in Maricopa.”
Fate, family, tradition
No matter how you look at it, Butler’s life has always been strangely intertwined with the pizzeria.
“Rosati’s opened in 1964, the same year I was born, and they opened their first restaurant in Mount Prospect, Illinois,” he said. “When I was 8 years old, my family moved from Chicago to a suburb next to Prospect.”
This move marked the beginning of a new family tradition: Friday pizza nights at Rosati’s.
“Back then, my family didn’t have a lot of money,” Butler said. “But Fridays were always a big night for friends and family. We’d get three or four extra-large pizzas, invite friends and neighbors over, and everyone just had a great time.”
This tradition, along with hosting family gatherings at the local restaurant, solidified Butler’s connection between Rosati’s pizza and the warm feeling of the company of loved ones.
Chicago pizza in the Sonoran Desert
When he moved to Arizona in 2011, one of his first missions was to find the authentic Chicago-style pizza his palate craved, Butler said.
“I lived in New York for three years and stopped eating pizza because I couldn’t find pizza that resembled the pizza I ate as a kid,” he said. “When we moved here, Rosati’s had a very good reputation. It’s the largest and highest-grossing Chicago pizzeria in Arizona.”
Rosati’s operates a dozen pizzerias across the state, the second most outside of Illinois. The opportunity to connect with his fellow Midwesterners is one of the joys Butler finds owning and operating the pizzeria. Chicago brings the fifth-most newcomers to Maricopa of any American city, national real estate brokerage Redfin said in May.
“One of the most satisfying things about owning a Rosati’s restaurant is all the people from the Midwest that I meet,” Butler said. “People from that part of the country know about Rosati’s and how good the food is there.”
Butler said the restaurant cooks its food from scratch, focusing on fresh ingredients and sauces, pizza dough and pasta made using Rosati’s original recipe. He said he hopes the restaurant will expand with the city.
“As Maricopa grows, we want to grow with it,” he said. “At some point we’re going to have to open a second restaurant in town, a sit-down restaurant.”
