If you don’t love Chicago deep-dish pizza, you might not know how many people missed it after Wiseguys closed in Horn Lake in 2019. And, honestly, Horn Lake is a bit of a haul for some of us. 

The pain really started for Memphians when Jimmy’s Chicago-style Hot Dogs closed in Bartlett in 2012.

Maybe that helps explain why Izzy & Adam’s, just skirting the edge of Bartlett and Memphis, had to close after it was open only one day. 

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I visited, back in September 2022, on what would’ve been Izzy & Adam’s second day of service. A shell-shocked Ryan Long, the owner, told me that they just weren’t ready, that so many people showed up on opening day they had to close down and that they needed a week or so to rethink how they were going to keep up with demand.

Me, I’ve never been crazy about Chicago deep-dish, which during the days of Jimmy’s (where we went almost weekly for the hot dogs), we called pizza casserole. So when Rotolo’s Craft & Crust opened in East Memphis last year, I was glad for the folks, like some of my cousins, who like deep-dish, but it didn’t get me any closer to a Chicago-style hot dog.

We’ll not dwell on this, but use it as a lesson of perseverance: After my first visit to Izzy & Adam’s, I waited about two weeks and gathered the family for pizza night. Nothing went right, and I mean nothing. Our order was wrong; the food was not good; the hot dog, which was not Chicago-style anyway, came in a box in pieces. There was no ice in the drink machine, so soft drinks were room temperature. It was chaotic for us and the other people dining there, and even ended with a plastic fork breaking when we went for a bite of tiramisu, which was frozen solid. I felt sorry for Long, but I left there never expecting to go back. I didn’t think he’d be open another month.

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But I started seeing positive reviews and good-looking photos on social media. I hesitated still, but finally we did it again. My cousins went for lunch and reported that everything was good, so I invited them and told the kids I was taking them out for pizza.

We pulled up, and my grandson said, “Noooooooo! Here?”

But the story has a happy ending; of course, it does. We ordered two thin-crust pizzas — one with cheese for the kids and another with pepperoni, mushroom and onion for the grown-ups, both cut in squares — Da Chicago Dude deep-dish, a Chicago-style hot dog for testing and an order of zeppole for dessert. All good, every bit of it.

The cousins and I don’t agree on what makes for good Chicago deep-dish. They prefer the kind we’ve all eaten in Chicago, the pizza with sauce and fillings that spread all over your plate when you’re served a piece. Not me. I noticed at Rotolo’s and again at Izzy & Adam’s that the deep-dish is a bit more restrained, a more manageable pizza than some I’ve eaten in years past. It’s thick and deep, but there’s more dough and less sauce. I’ll take the thin-crust any day, but if I’m going deep, this is how I prefer it.

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Da Chicago Dude, by the way, is a good place to start. It’s full of Italian sausage (which goes on the pizzas raw and cooks while the dough is cooking; that amps up the flavor), pepperoni, garlic, onion and giardiniera, a rough-chop pickled relish of peppers, celery, cauliflower, carrots and probably anything else sitting around. The flavors are on point, and I plan to try this as a thin-crust pizza on my next visit (though I’m likely to go deep dish again, too).

The thin-crust isn’t crunchy and isn’t chewy either; I think Chicago pizza is less about the crust and more about what’s on top. It’s fine; there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just not distinctive. But on top there’s a layer of zesty tomato sauce, cheese, toppings, then more cheese, and we just about polished it off. It’s good pizza, so good that when dinner was over, the previously complaining grandson let on that it was now his favorite place for pizza.

Whether you go for dinner or lunch, don’t miss the zeppole. They’re little squares of fried pizza dough, served here under an avalanche of powdered sugar, beignet or funnel cake style. They’re simple, as fried dough is, but I could’ve ordered two baskets, and we would’ve eaten every one of them. They come with a chocolate sauce for dipping, but that’s not for me; you do you.

We’ll move to sandwiches, but first to that hot dog: Solid. A Chicago-style dog should be exactly what it’s supposed to be or you shouldn’t call it that. And that means it’s a Vienna beef dog, served on a poppy seed bun and topped with mustard, a dill pickle spear, tomato, onion, sport peppers, sweet “nuclear” relish and a dash of celery salt. The relish is so named for its fluorescent green color, but they don’t use it at Izzy & Adam’s. Yet regular sweet relish is a small concession to make to have the best Chicago dog I’ve eaten here since Jimmy’s closed. It might even be better.

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Lunch at Izzy & Adam’s is a $10 Deal just about across the board. You can get two slices of deep dish and a soft drink for $9.99. Same price for a Chicago Italian roast beef, which comes with fries and a drink. Or a meatball sub, also with fries and a drink. (Or $8.99 for six wings with fries and a drink, though I can’t tell you about those as I haven’t tried them. But I know it’s a deal.)

That Chicago Italian beef is a righteous sandwich. It’s served on grilled garlic bread and the roast beef is thinly sliced, intense, served generously, topped with your choice of sweet peppers or giardiniera, dipping jus on the side. But you need to think for a minute about the jus, because you’ll need to make a decision about it: Do you want your whole sandwich dipped in it? I don’t, because obviously the bread will get wet and unless you eat at warp speed, it’ll get soggy. On the other hand, it tastes fabulous, so it’s tempting. My suggestion is you get the jus poured on the meat, for some extra oomph, then have it on the side to dip at will.

Meatballs are good here, too. Three big ones come on a sandwich, topped with mozzarella and red sauce. They’re tender and savory, about all you really need in a meatball. And they come on the same bread, which is excellent.

Izzy & Adam’s is a small place — it seats about 30 — and not without a few flaws. They use fairly substantial plastic knives and forks, but the forks still melt in the hot pizza; if you’re dining in, you should have real flatware, even if it’s cheap industrial stuff. And they need to get pizza stands pronto so there’s room on the table to serve a couple of pizzas. We improvised by turning the napkin holders on their sides so we could get the height and keep the napkins — much needed — handy.

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But I call it a success. We ate dinner there on a Friday night when every table was taken, and there was a steady flow of takeout customers coming in. There was a minor mix-up with a pizza, but it was inconsequential as everyone quickly got the right order. At lunch, where there was a steady crowd though the restaurant wasn’t full, food came out quickly. 

I’ll be back; you can count on that. After all, this kid I know says it’s his favorite pizza.