Limited-edition Crust Fund Pizzas are sold out of a Chicago alley, all for charities
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Would you buy pizza from an alley?
What if the thin-crust pizzas being sold in that alley were so popular that they sold out within minutes—and the profits all go to help others?
Crust Fund Pizza does not publicize its specific location, and customers cannot just come up and grab a pizza as if it were Rosati's or Lou Malnati's. But there is a garage with an open overhead door and a picnic table in that alley, and indeed people do pick up pizzas there.
Hanny Pei lucked into one of this month's very limited-edition Curst Fund Pizzas—spending $160 for only one of 12 thin-crust pies. She had been hoping to get one since back this past summer.
"This afternoon, I got a call, so I said, I guess at 8 o'clock, I'm going to be driving, looking for an alley somewhere, and we'll have an adventure, and it will be a good time," said Pei.
The garage in question is behind the home of John Carruthers, the creator of the exclusive pizzas.
Carruthers' recipe is rooted in kindness.
"I don't take any money for these pizzas, and what you do is you make a donation to the charity of the month that we designate," he said. "You get a pizza, and I get to know that this place that means a lot to me is seeing more money this month."
Carruthers' pizza passion started in 2020 as a weekly pandemic ritual for his family.
"We talked about it, and I figure that if the only thing I can do is make pizza, then the only thing I can do is make pizza for the people out there making a difference," said Carruthers.
Since then, Carruthers and his thin crusts have raised $80,000—a lot of dough for charities around Chicago.
The $832 that Crust Fund Pizza raised this month helped Yanni Dimoulis buy toys for kids in the hospital over the holidays.
"It took zero convincing," said Dimoulis. "I think I knew he was a good guy. His whole business is based around doing charity work. I sent one message about it, and he was immediately in."
The creative pizzas also come with equally amusing names.
"I try to think of the stupidest dad-joke pizza name I can and then work backwards from there," said Carruthers.
The Royko, for instance, features Italian sausage, or "sassidge" and hot giardiniera.
Naming a thin-crust pizza after the late Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko is fitting—inasmuch as Royko went on record as not being a fan of deep-dish pizza, regardless of how much a symbol of Chicago it may be.
"If you try to pick up a piece of deep-dish pizza, you might get a hernia. Or you could fall on your lap and break your thigh bone. And the worst part of it is that it is so thick and heavy, you can only eat a slice or two. And that requires a knife and fork," Royko wrote in a 1993 column for the Chicago Tribune. "Ah, but with good thin-crust pizza, you can pop piece after piece into your mouth, like potato chips, until you are in a happy, satisfied stupor."
So aside from providing that happy, satisfied stupor to so many pleased customers, what does Carruthers get out of his efforts?
"I get to make pizza that I'm really proud of," said Carruthers. "This is my thing, and if Chicago gets just the tiniest little lift from what we're doing here, then it's worth it."
On his website, Carruthers explains how the process of getting a pizza from Crust Fund works (this list is paraphrased):
- Once a month, he creates a new pizza menu for alley pickups.
- Those who sign up for the Crust Fund Mailing List get the menu ahead of time.
- For everyone else, Carruthers also posts the pizza menu to his Instagram account a couple of days before pickups. The Instagram posting pretty much always goes up on a Monday, Carruthers writes.
- An order form is made available at a link in Carruthers' Instagram profile, which will reserve a pizza and a pickup time. If there are no open slots, this means he is sold out.
- Carruthers notes that the last pizza of the month goes up for auction and goes to the highest bidder. He takes bids by direct messages and keeps track of them on his Instagram Stories. The bid ends at 8 p.m. the Monday before pickup night. Carruthers quips that he chose this auction feature because it seemed like "the most corrupt Chicago way I could think to run it."
- Pickup times are 8 p.m., 9 p.m., and 10 p.m. on the nose the Thursday evening after orders go live, Carruthers writes.
- Carruthers follows up with customers on pickup details, and the mechanism for donating to the charity of the month, after all the orders are in.
- The pickup location—that is, the alley, is divulged to customers only after all details are nailed down on order, time, and location. Beer drinkers might get a beer to go with their pizza.
