Little Caesars may not know it yet, but the owners of the newly opened Angry Gene’s Pizza Now say they’re taking on the franchise chain in what they see as a David vs. Goliath battle over Carpentersville’s fastest, most affordable pizza.
Owners Andrew, Daniel, and Stephen Singer opened their doors Monday at 150 S. Kennedy Drive, a stone’s throw from their pizza nemesis.
“If Little Caesars is good at one thing, it’s choosing locations,” Andrew Singer said. “We decided we wanted to go right across the street from them.”
Carpentersville is the fourth Angry Gene’s location for the Singer brothers, who have shops in Hanover Park, Aurora and West Chicago. Originally operating under the name Pizza Now, they knew they needed something more memorable once they started franchising, he said.
“We wanted (a name) that would stand out more,” Singer said. Inspired by their father, the moniker Angry Gene’s fit the bill and was easy to trademark, he said.
As part of the name change, they came up with a mascot of an angry-looking guy. Dad “doesn’t like the face we made him as a cartoon mascot,” Singer said with a laugh.
Gene Singer launched Pizza Now after working for years as a district manager for Little Caesars, making a name for himself by transforming underperforming stores into winners, Andrew Singer said.
When he was passed over for a promotion, Gene Singer left the company and opened his own pizzeria in West Chicago. Not long after, Little Caesars opened a store about three miles away, his son said.
“It took a big portion of our sales. (But) we took the storm on, we weathered through it and our sales (returned to) where they were,” Andrew Singer said.
The three brothers have sunk about $300,000 into renovations at their Carpentersville store, remodeling a location that was vacant for years after having been a Chinese restaurant for more than three decades, he said.
“We had to do the plumbing, rip up the floor and put pipes down. It took a few months. We were ready to go around December until the fire alarm tripped us up,” he said.
Installing fire alarms is not necessarily hard but involved a lot of red tape, Singer said. “It was a process. But fire alarms are important so we had to grin and bear it,” he said.
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Finally opening Angry Gene’s is “tremendously gratifying,” he said.
There isn’t a secret ingredient other than “the way you get the pizza into the customer’s hand,” he said.
“We make the dough in-house. We shred our own cheese. We cut up our own vegetables. It’s very apparent when a business cares about the product that goes out,” Singer said.
Making one takes about 10 minutes, and they think their prices are competitive, he said. A 14-inch cheese pizza with one topping is $7.49. Two cheese pizzas with one topping on each, eight chicken wings, breadsticks and a bottle of soda goes for $25.99.
“You just gotta sell a lot of pizza,” he said to make a go of it.
“We’re known for a good price point. … It makes me proud when I see a hardworking guy come in and know he can put dinner on the table for a good price and be proud of what he’s giving his family,” Singer said.
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.