When Art “Gonzo” Garza heard his mentor Gary Schaefer died Aug. 23, a twist of regret added to his sadness. Despite a 34-year friendship, “life happened,” admitted Garza, “and I didn’t get over to see Gary as much as I would have liked” at the Sandwich nursing home where he resided toward the end of his life.
Those thoughts are common, of course, when we get the news someone close to us has passed away. Still, Garza takes great comfort and a whole lot of pride knowing he’s carrying on a legacy his good friend started more than 60 years ago.
Schaefer opened Gario’s Pizza Villa in Montgomery back in September of 1963, and there’s plenty of reasons he is known locally as the “King of Pizza.”
Around eight, in fact. After he sold his popular eatery in 1980, Schaefer helped many others – including former employees, start and operate their own pizza places. Among them: Michelangelo’s and Ach-N-Lou’s in Aurora, NuWay in Montgomery, House of Pizza in Oswego, The Point in Sugar Grove, Chumly’s in Shabbona and last but certainly not least, Gonzo’s Rock and Roll Pizzeria in Sandwich.
The latter was opened by Garza 16 years ago with the guidance and blessing of his mentor. And according to some family members, it is the closest match to the recipe that helped create their father’s pizza legend in the Fox Valley.
“I promised him I’d take very good care of his recipe,” Garza said. “I have stayed 100% true to the recipe he gave me.”
Then again, that claim is also made by Tina Zwolski, a self-described “pizza connoisseur” who opened Chumly’s in 2003 when she and her now ex-husband “took Gary out of retirement” after his wife Marlene passed away to help him deal with his grief.
“He showed us how to do everything, make the fresh dough, cut up the fresh veggies … we had the sausage recipe he shared with us like his mother made,” Zwolski said of the pizza man who was “like family” to her.
By the way, according to Garza, who “saw it with my own eyes,” those ingredients were originally written in longhand by Schaefer’s mother and kept in the family Bible in their home on Claim Street in Aurora.
Schaefer’s daughters describe grandmother Marguerite as “a great cook,” who helped their father, an East Aurora High School graduate, get into the pizza business following his stint in the Army during the Korean War and later in the Reserves.
Thomas Haas, Schaefer’s nephew who still lives in the family home, told me it was in the late 1950s that his uncle would drive to Wisconsin to buy cheese for those serving pizza locally, and eventually began bringing back frozen pizzas for these businesses to sell.
Haas also recalls Schaefer loading up a wagon with fresh pizzas on dry ice and driving it around town so Haas, then just 8, and other local boys could go door to door selling them.
When mother and son opened that first Gario’s at 628 Montgomery Road in 1963, there were only a few pizzerias in the area – Luigi’s would open soon after – and Pizza Hut had not yet to come to town. The proliferation of pizzerias, of course, made it harder to survive, especially because Schaefer insisted on staying true to that original Gario’s recipe, which included using only the finest and freshest ingredients.
Despite telling a news reporter at one time he planned on “dying face down in a pizza,” Schaefer sold the restaurant in 1980 – by then it had moved to its current location at 813 Montgomery Road – to employees Frank Hickernell and Robert “Punch” Campbell.
But Schaefer could never keep his hands out of the dough for long. After honoring a five-year non-compete agreement, he started helping others get their own pizza joints going, staying with some for months and with others for years.
“That was the fun part for him, getting them up and running,” said daughter Brenda Rompf of Big Rock, adding that “we run into people wherever we go” who rave about her father’s pizza and “the memories they bring.”
Even after he began struggling with health issues and moved from a Shabbona apartment to the Pavilion on Main in Sandwich, her dad was considered a “celebrity” among some employees who had grown up eating regularly at Gario’s, she added.
“They were just so excited when they found out who he was.”
That’s because he “really was the Pizza King,” insisted Zwolski, who has temporarily closed Chumly’s until she can find another cheese distributor as good as the one she’d been using that closed down.
“It’s about finding the best ingredients,” Zwolski said, noting again the commitment to keeping her pizza as true to Schaefer’s original as possible.
“It’s not just the perfect dough or the perfect veggies or sausage,” she continued. “It’s the love he put into each and every pizza he made.”
Rompf agrees, adding “there’s an art to making a pizza” that goes beyond ingredients. And her father, she said, definitely had it perfected, to the point “I could tell if Dad made it or one of his employees.”
That brings us to another Gary Schaefer legacy.
It was more than his businesses, noted Rompf, who admitted she and her siblings grew up on pizza – “we ate it cold with milk for breakfast” – yet never tired of it. It was his seven children, 19 grandchildren, 19 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren who brought him the greatest pleasure.
“The love for his family drove his passion for work,” said Rompf. “He took care of everybody,” including a large network of friends.
“Gary had a heart the size of Texas,” said Garza, who also recalled Schaefer’s love of music, especially rock and roll, that inspired his own Sandwich pizzeria to put a heavy emphasis on live entertainment and open mics.
“He loved to have fun and laugh. Friendships meant a lot to him.”
Which is why Garza regrets not spending as much time with his old pal.
“I can remember that last pizza I shared with him,” he said. “I’d give anything to be able to eat another with him now.”
Visitation for Gary Schaefer will be held at 9 a.m. Sept. 9 at St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church in Sandwich, followed by a funeral Mass at 10 a.m. and burial at Lincoln Memorial Cemetery in Aurora. A reception luncheon will also be held at the restaurant that will bring an extraordinary life full circle … at Gario’s Pizza Villa.
Of course things have changed over the decades at this pizzeria that remains a popular eatery. When his father bought the place 40-plus years ago, there “was a small countertop, six stools and two tables around the corner,” recalls current owner Scott Hickernell, who operates it with his wife and daughter. Now it can accommodate close to 200 and includes sandwiches, arcades and gambling machines.
What’s remained the same, however, is what made its founder the undisputed Pizza King of the Aurora area.
“We have not changed anything,” promised Hickernell. “The pizza is identical.”
dcrosby@tribpub.com
