Profile: Jay Becker Made Pizza His Business

For Jay Becker, pizza is more than sauce and dough and some toppings; it is a meal and an experience to be savored.

Becker knows his pizza. Saturday he will celebrate his 25th anniversary as the owner of .

Back in 1983, Becker was a student who started working at the pizza place, located on the north side of Naperville on Washington Street, as a driver. After he graduated, and when the shop’s manager left, he took over the managerial duties. Not long after he began talks with the owner and eventually bought the business.

“The town was really growing then and it was a good location,” Becker said. “The owner wasn’t interested in growing the business.”

He became a business owner at a time when most young people are still trying to figure out what they want to do with their lives and fun is at the forefront.

But with parents who owned their own businesses and his classes in accounting, Becker thought he was ready for the responsibility. He kept track of the numbers and knew what the expenses would be. His father was impressed with his diligence.

“We weren’t real busy at the beginning and that allowed me to grow into [the business],” Becker said.

He hadn’t, however, considered how much time he would be putting into the work.

“My friends would come home from college and they would want me to go out,” he said. “They would say just close the place. But I told them that is not how a business is run.”

As a 19-year-old he said he probably expected the work would be easier and he didn’t realize all that goes into managing a business. Today he said he could manage the business in his sleep.

Becker still works six days a week and even on his days off he is running errands, such as buying many of the fresh ingredients used in Uncle Pete’s pizzas.

When he took over the pizza shop in 1986 there were about 10 to 12 pizza places in the area he covers -- Naperville down to about 95thStreet, Warrenvlle and Lisle. Today there are close to 50 or 60 pizza places. Most are corporate franchises with mom and pop shops few and far between.

“I try to focus on how we do everything ourselves,” Becker said.

Franchises may ship the dough already made and the vegetables are already prepped before they arrive.

“We make our own sauce, we prep our own food. We don’t use preservatives or additives,” he said. “It’s all fresh."

He said pizza at Uncle Pete’s is a meal because he doesn’t skimp on ingredients.

He said the shop’s slogan is: “We make pizza a meal, not a snack.”

He also believes in buying quality products. If you’ve ever had a pizza where the cheese was overly greasy, that was skimping on quality, he said.

One change over the years has been in the number of toppings he offers on his pizzas. When he first bought the place there were about 12 toppings; nowadays that is 26. Uncle Pete's offers goat and feta cheese and even do a broccoli pizza.

When the Atkins craze was rampant, pizza orders were down, but Becker is happy to report that more people are ordering thick crust and pan pizza. But his shop also offers an extra-thin crust.

He said there are healthier options available for those worried about their waistline.

Uncle Pete’s also offers fresh garlic and pizza bread. A breadmaker bakes the bread overnight in the shop, so it’s always fresh, he said.

The pizza place has a loyal following and there are many customers whom Becker knows just from their order or their voice over the phone. Some order several times a week.

“I have parents who will buy Little Caesars for their kids and then buy my pizza for themselves,” he said. “I tell them, ‘you know there are child abuse laws.’”

Unlike some pizza places that offer sandwiches and entrees, Becker said he has chosen to focus on pizza.

Although anyone can make a pizza, he said it is difficult to make a pizza well:

“It becomes almost like an art form to make it right and to make it consistent.”

Just looking at a pizza, he can tell which employee made it, he said.

“I think when you do all kind of things like that you’re not specializing,” Becker said. “And, we do pizza. Just doing pizza and being in business for 25 years, you have to know what you are doing.”