For six decades, Old World Pizza has made its home inside an Elmwood Park strip mall near the bustling crossroads of North and Harlem Avenues.
While ownership has passed through a few hands since its humble 1960s beginnings, one goal remains the same, yet with deeper dedication than ever before — delivering authentic, Chicago-style Italian food that feeds both hungry appetites and satisfies neighborhood camaraderie.
In September 2024, Forest Park resident Danielle Michelon and her fiancé, Patrick Sumara, jumped at the opportunity to purchase the business, something Michelon says was a shared dream of taking a struggling pizzeria and rejuvenating it into a thriving and delicious community cornerstone.
With Michelon’s background in sales and marketing and Sumara’s experience in the finance world, both were new to the world of restaurant ownership. But Sumara, who was a longtime patron of Old World Pizza, decided with Michelon that the time was right to take the plunge into purchasing the business and helping restore the restaurant in jeopardy of completely closing its doors into a classically-driven village staple with some modern marketing.
“Patrick’s dream was always to find a business that was failing and get into the restoration of it,” Michelon said. “It’s been awesome taking this restaurant that was about to close and bring it back to being a profitable business and restoring it.”
With cosmetic interior updates and upgrades to the quality of ingredients purchased for its homemade menu items, Michelon says she’s proud of two things that have remained the same after so many years: staying true to the restaurant’s original thin-crust pizza recipe, and the kitchen leadership of Amadeo Montalvo, who has worked in the kitchen at Old World Pizza for more than 30 years.
“I would say what makes our pizza so special is our blend of cheese, which we mix ourselves,” she said. “It’s a house-cheese blend, and our sauce is perfectly in the middle — it’s not too sweet, it’s not too acidic, it’s not too tomato-ey. Our dough is simple and made in-house, and people rave about it.”
In addition to delivering the same tavern-style thin crust the restaurant was always known for, Michelon says Montalvo helps guide the couple with ensuring all menu items are fresh and cooked to perfection. As homage to the restaurant’s long-time chef, Michelon and Sumara have added a new fan-favorite to the menu — the Amadeo sub.
“The sandwich is his invention, like a kitchen-sink of Italian sandwiches,” she said.
Crafted with cuts of ham, pepperoni and Italian beef, the Amadeo is generously loaded with toppings including lettuce, tomatoes, onions, American and mozzarella cheeses, and the customer’s choice of hot giardiniera or jalapeños.
Another new menu item Michelon says quickly rose to fan-favorite is the double deck pie pizza — a thin-crust pizza layer with toppings and cheese stacked with another thin-crust pizza on top and the two crusts braided together.
The restaurant may have changed hands over the years, but one thing has remained the same: Old World Pizza’s beloved thin-crust pizza recipe with an in-house cheese blend and sauce described as “perfectly in the middle of sweetness.” Credit: Jackie Pisano 
Old World Pizza offers one of the only double deck pizzas available locally — a pie featuring two thin-crust pizzas stacked atop each other and finished with a braided crust. Credit: Jackie Pisano
“The double deck pizza definitely makes us stand out,” she said.
Other hot dishes include pasta dinners, like the lasagna (fresh pasta stuffed with imported cheeses, blended with fresh spinach and herbs, and draped with their homemade marinara sauce) and chicken wings (available in a variety of flavors including barbecue, lemon pepper, hot Buffalo sauce, garlic parmesan, mango habanero and citrus explosion).
Despite the dozens of pizzerias scattered across Elmwood Park and the surrounding area, Michelon says Old World Pizza isn’t in the business of competition, but being a friendly neighbor.
“I love having other pizza spots in the neighborhood that we can play off of, and other businesses and the Village of Elmwood Park have been awesome,” she said. “What makes us unique is that even though Old World Pizza has been around here forever, we are a new kid on the block. This is not a family business that’s been passed down from generation to generation, and it wasn’t necessarily our brainchild to start, but we were consumers who fell in love with it so much and didn’t want anything to happen to it, so we wanted to be sure to preserve it.”
With the introduction of Instagram and TikTok accounts for Old World Pizza and a brand-new YouTube channel on the horizon, Michelon is excited for what the future holds as they focus on delivering delectable dishes and propelling the pizzeria into the modern world of food and content creation.
Two years after buying the business, Michelon says she and her fiancé are glad they made the decision, welcoming patrons both new and old — many of whom were glad to return to their formerly beloved pizza joint after years away.
“There have been so many people who came back after not being here for a while and saying, ‘Oh my God, I stopped coming here because of X, Y, Z, but everything tastes better,” she said.
Throughout the month of October, Old World Pizza will be featuring specialty menu items for National Pizza Month, including their invention of a “witches brew pizza,” made with hot giardiniera, mushrooms, garlic, spinach and ricotta cheese. Be on the lookout for additional fun menu items celebrating National Sausage Day, National Pasta Day and National Dessert Day.
Old World Pizza, 7230 W. North Ave., is open seven days a week. For more information including hours, the full menu and catering options, visit originaloldworldpizza.brygid.online.