After six years, Brad Hammond calls the task of winning Springfieldians’ acceptance of St. Louis’ favorite pizza, Imo’s, akin to forcing a square peg into a triangular hole.
Hammond, managing partner of the city’s only Imo’s Pizza store, at 751 S. Durkin Drive, says he moved up to Springfield “with the arrogance of believing that this was the best pizza on the planet” and thought that he could get people in Springfield to agree.
He was wrong, and the pizzeria closed its doors last week.
“We gave it six good years, and Springfield never warmed up to the idea of St. Louis-style pizza,” he says.
“You put all your time, and all the heartache and headache, that goes into opening a restaurant; it’s well worth it if the pay is good enough, but if the pay isn’t good enough, darn it, you have to do what’s best for your family.”
It wasn’t that he had a bad product, or even a poor location, Hammond says.
In fact, Imo’s had won Illinois Times readers’ poll awards in 2002 and 2003, and Hammond says lovers of the “square beyond compare” frequently drove in from all over central Illinois, sometimes taking as many as four pizzas home with them.
One fan, Sunshine Clemons, who grew up in the Metro East, is disappointed that she’ll now have to wait until she visits the St. Louis area to have Imo’s. “I thought Springfield was coming up, but now I guess it’s back to square one,” she says.
But in the end, Imo’s, whose pizzas are built on a thin, crispy crust, then topped with Provel cheese — a blend of Cheddar, Swiss, and Provolone — and cut into squares, is just a different kind of pie than most people around here are accustomed to.
“I find it’s like Bob Dylan — either you love it or you hate it,” Hammond says.
On top of that, he says, misinformation about Imo’s ingredients — ranging from speculation about whether sausage grease was added to the sauce to rumors that Provel is actually made with goat cheese – circulated constantly.
Although his customers had the option of replacing Provel with the more traditional mozzarella, Hammond says:
“That was the battle that we fought, and it never seemed to turn the corner. We got it to a point where we were running in the race, but when you start so far behind in the race, you’re just never going to catch up.”
Contact R.L. Nave at rnave@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Dec 14-20, 2006.
