Issac Sewell (September 9, 1903 – August 20, 1990) was an American athlete, businessman, entrepreneur, and founder of the
Uno Chicago Grill
Uno Pizzeria & Grill (formerly Pizzeria Uno and Uno Chicago Grill), or more informally as Unos, is a franchised pizzeria restaurant chain under the parent company Uno Restaurant Holdings Corporation. Uno Pizzeria and Grill is best known for its ...
restaurant chain that originated in
Chicago, Illinois
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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, as well as founder of the Pizzeria Uno and Pizzeria Due restaurants there in 1943 and 1955, respectively. Sewell started as an All-
Southwestern Conference
The Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) is a collegiate athletic conference headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, which is made up of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the Southern United States. It participates in t ...
guard as a player on the
Texas Longhorn football
The Texas Longhorns football program is the intercollegiate team representing the University of Texas at Austin (variously Texas or UT) in the sport of American football. The Texas Longhorns, Longhorns compete in the NCAA Division I Football ...
teams from 1926 to 1929.
Biography
Early life and career
Sewell was born in
Wills Point, Texas
Wills Point is a city in Van Zandt County, Texas, United States. The population was 3,524 at the 2010 census.
History
Founded in 1873, Wills Point gets its name from an early American settler, William Wills, who had arrived in the area ''circa'' ...
, 50 miles east of
Dallas
Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...
, and grew up in
San Antonio
("Cradle of Freedom")
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. A graduate of the
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
, Sewell achieved both All-Southwest Conference (SWC) and All-American honors as a guard on the Longhorn football squad.
Sewell was a member of the
Sigma Chi
Sigma Chi () International Fraternity is one of the largest North American fraternal literary societies. The fraternity has 244 active (undergraduate) chapters and 152 alumni chapters across the United States and Canada and has initiated more tha ...
fraternity.
Pizzeria Uno and Su Casa restaurants
In 1943 Sewell opened Pizzeria Uno restaurant at the corner of Ohio Street and Wabash Avenue in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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, offering the first Chicago
deep dish pizza
Chicago-style pizza is pizza prepared according to several different styles developed in Chicago, widely referred to simply as deep dish pizza due to its cooking style. The pan in which it is baked gives the pizza its characteristically high ed ...
. He had originally intended to open a Mexican restaurant.
Ric Riccardo and Sewell would eventually expand and open up another restaurant, Pizzeria Due, just a block away from Pizzeria Uno, in 1955. Sewell would also open up the Chicago area's first upscale
Tex-Mex
Tex-Mex cuisine (from the words ''Texan'' and ''Mexican'') is an American cuisine that derives from the culinary creations of the ''Tejano'' people of Texas. It has spread from border states such as Texas and others in the Southwestern United ...
restaurant, Su Casa, in 1963.
Death
Just 20 days before his 87th birthday, Sewell died in
Northwestern Memorial Hospital
Northwestern Memorial Hospital (NMH) is a nationally ranked academic medical center located on Northwestern University’s Chicago campus in Streeterville, Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship campus for Northwestern Medicine and the primary ...
in Chicago on August 20, 1990 after suffering from a lengthy bout with leukemia for several years. He was survived by his wife Florence Davis as well as his children and several grandchildren.
Ike Sewell, 87; Developed Thick-Crust Pizza, Dubbed It Chicago-Style, (obituary), LA Times, 8-27-1990, accessed 9-20-2010.
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References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sewell, Ike
1903 births
1990 deaths
Fast-food chain founders
American restaurateurs
Texas Longhorns football players
People from Dallas
People from San Antonio
People from Wills Point, Texas
Deaths from leukemia
20th-century American businesspeople