Stuck to My Ribs: Bono's Pizzeria

Josh Bacott

​One of the detriments to living in a city that claims its own "style" of pizza? A significant chunk of the locally-owned establishments ignore the alternatives.

Seemingly every neighborhood joint that offers delivery specializes in thin-crust St. Louis-style pizza. As a lifelong resident of the Gateway City, I'm an unabashed lover of St. Louis-style pizza. I typically live by the credo the more provel, the better.

But one problem with our city's trademark pizza is that when a guy has a nice appetite worked up, he can mow through a twelve-inch thin-crust pie in roughly ten minutes and still find himself rifling through the cabinets for a snack within the hour. Simply put: The name of this blog and St.Louis-style pizza are not synonymous.

So what happens when you are craving something a little heavier? Perhaps you're looking for a nice thick-crust, mozzarella-covered treat, only you're too lazy to pick one up at Black Thorn or sit down at Onesto? The delivery options for non-St. Louis-style pizza in most areas are chains and more chains. Such was the case around my hood.

Then, a few months back, the old Cecil Whittakers carry-out/delivery shack on Watson Road in South City closed up shop and relocated a few blocks up the street. Taking over its spot at 3825 Watson was the new Bono's Pizzeria, owned by the family that has operated Caleco's in downtown since 1974.

With Bono's came an option that its predecessor was not apt to offer: delivery of a ten-inch Chicago-style deep-dish pizza that was as tall and thick as roughly a dozen of its CWP thin-crust counterparts.