Pie Hole Pizza Joint in Boystown Closed Down Again (This Time Probably for Good)
It’s been awhile since I last wrote about Pie Hole Pizza Joint here in Boystown.
For those who don’t recall, this is the little pizza shop that made waves a year or two ago by contributing to the increase in crime afflicting Boystown; its owner, Doug Brandt, decided he didn’t want to run a business so much as he wanted to own a pizza shop/late-night-youth-center chimera…where underaged kids too young to go into the bars on Halsted could hang out late into the night, using Pie Hole as an after-dark clubhouse.
A pattern emerged where the Center on Halsted — a community center built at the corner of Halsted and Waveland — engaged in programs that drew troubled “youth” (including many juveniles and delinquents with criminal records) to the Boystown neighborhood and allowed them to hang around the Center all day (where without adult supervision they quickly got up to no good). At 11pm when the Center closed, the “youth” were discharged onto the street where many of them, for whatever reason, refused to get onto a bus or train and head back to where they actually lived.
It should be pretty obvious that the Center on Halsted was responsible for the increase in crime in the neighborhood that occurred when large numbers of these “youth” were sent out into the dark, every night, with nothing better to do than break into cars, mug people, and burglarize the residences surrounding the Center. Over the years, dozens of gay men were targeted for beatings by these “disadvantaged youth” — and the neighborhood, being politically-correct Leftists for the most part, refused to talk about what was happening because the criminals involved were black. This is similar to how, in Paris, whenever you see footage of “youth” setting cars on fire or looting storefronts the reporters obsessively refuse to mention the rioters are Muslim. In Chicago, that political-correctness requires reporters to never mention it’s black people targeting whites as crime victims in this city…especially in Boystown where the black criminals are imported to the neighborhood by the Center on Halsted and then set loose upon the gay residents in what would be deemed “hate-crimes” if the skin color of the attackers and victims were reversed.
Anyone who openly discussed the problems the Center on Halsted caused by importing criminal youth from “the bad parts of town” and giving them “a safe place to hangout in a nicer neighborhood” was called — wait for it — a RAAACIST! because the people doing the muggings, burglaries, and committing the crimes were black and the victims were white. Nope, no pattern here. Move along. Never state the obvious because we can’t admit the Left’s political-correctness is getting people’s brains bashed in on a daily basis here in Chicago.
Pie Hole Pizza Joint took on a focal role in all of this because its owner Brandt went out of his way to make sure the “youth” the Center released into the neighborhood at 11pm nightly remained on Halsted until 3am when Pie Hole closed; his actions were well-intended but he never stopped to think about the consequences of encouraging the “youth” to remain in Boystown long after the Center on Halsted closed. Since these “youth” were mostly under-21, they were not able to get into the bars on the strip and they didn’t have the money to take up tables in the few all-night restaurants around Boystown. Pie Hole gave them free food and allowed them to use Brandt’s restaurant as a late-night clubhouse. What could go wrong, right?
From this bulkhead, the “youth” hunted victims in the side streets around Pie Hole, bashing gay mens’ heads in with rocks, bricks, baseball bats, and metal rods and stealing whatever they could from their victims. Then they’d head back to Pie Hole where Brandt would give them free pizza and prove his Leftist bona fides by doing poetry slams with them and encouraging them to hang around the next night too. Meanwhile, the Mayor’s office prevented the police from addressing the obvious and chasing the gangs of “youth” away, since the police in Chicago are terrified of being called RAAACISTS! and having the Leftists that run this city complain they “profile” the gangs of “youth” who were clearly hassling people as they tried to patronize the bars and businesses in Boystown.
The corner of Halsted and Roscoe where Pie Hole was located became the sight of gang violence, with the “youth” running a typical schedule of nesting at the Center on Halsted all day until it closed, then hanging out at Pie Hole with Brandt’s encouragement until it shut down, and finally rumbling in the parking lot across from Pie Hole and mugging drunk, gay men as they were stumbling home in the early hours of the morning. Lather, rinse, beat the stuffing out of anyone who looks like he’s got $20 on him.
After continual complaints to the building’s owner, Pie Hole’s lease was not renewed and Brandt was forced to shutter the restaurant in May of 2010. Almost immediately, crime in the area dropped, as the “youth” had nowhere to hang out once the Center on Halsted closed. In the fall of 2010, Pie Hole got a new lease in a little strip of storefronts on Broadway (a block east and several blocks north of where Pie Hole was originally located). People who lived in this immediate area were concerned that Brandt would attempt to make this Pie Hole Redux into a pizza shop/late night youth center too. Brandt openly mocked neighbors who were concerned about his business model — and took to Twitter to call anyone who challenged him on the “youth center” aspect of what he was doing a RAAACIST.
Here’s a letter some in the Lakeview community (the area just east of Boystown where Pie Hole relocated) sent to the Alderman voicing concern over Pie Hole’s move and Brandt’s continued “late night youth center” mentality.
Brandt mocked his new neighbors, called them racists for writing the letter, and posted this letter on his Facebook to downplay their concerns. As a businessman, he has never seemed to take the opinions of others seriously and has instead insisted he had a right to always do as he pleases — to Hades with the consequences. If you disagree with him about how he runs his business (into the ground), then you are a RAAACIST. If you insist he follow the rules that have been established for businesses in the neighborhood, you are a HOMOPHOBE because you are hassling a gay man. Brandt has an excuse for absolutely everything but seemingly no ability to take responsibility for things he does.
Here’s a good example of that:
The City inspectors shut down Pie Hole’s construction in October of 2010 because Brandt didn’t think the rules pertaining to City permitting applied to him (in his mind, this was no doubt because he is gay…and since his business attracted black youth at night that meant anyone “hassling” him was not only homophobic, but RAAACIST! too). He posted a snap of the above on his Facebook and encouraged his fans to mock the City for “giving him a hard time”, implying it was — of course — someone else’s fault that he did not complete the proper paperwork to be able to open his restaurant when he wanted to.
Flash forward a bit and you’d be surprised to learn that someone, somewhere, DID in fact manage to talk some sense into Brandt and he dropped the whole “late night youth center” aspect to Pie Hole. He no longer ran poetry slams or encouraged the youth from the Center on Halsted to hangout at Pie Hole late into the night; instead, he ran the shop as just a business and not a clubhouse for “youth” from other parts of town.
The place seemed two or three times busier than it ever did when it was located in the heart of Boystown — and there’d easily be three to five employees working a shift instead of the one or two that Brandt employed at the original location. So, it seemed Pie Hole was doing a lot more business on Broadway than it did on Halsted and that Brandt’s attitude must have changed (I bet, no doubt, at the command of the people who owned the building in which he rented his space).
I haven’t thought of the place in a long time because of a few run-ins I had with Brandt since I started writing about the late night trouble Pie Hole caused the neighborhood. I used to be a big fan of the place — and still believe it has the best pizza I’ve ever had in my entire life — but stopped supporting it after Brandt called me a RAACIST! a few times for criticizing his decision to allow thugs and juvenile delinquents to use Pie Hole as a base of operations to commit crimes in the neighborhood. A good friend of mine had his head bashed in by the “youth” that Brandt deliberately attracted to Pie Hole late at night so I was not particularly inclined to keep quiet about what he did there, no matter what names he called me. So I never bought another After School Special sausage-and-marshmallow pizza from Pie Hole again…though I honestly wished the place luck in its new location, since it truly was the best pizza in town and the people Brandt had on staff were always so friendly and fun.
Well, yesterday ChicagoPride and other sources broke the story that Pie Hole Pizza Joint has been closed again — and this time for good it seems — because Brandt failed to pay his state sales taxes for, apparently, EVER.
Of course, like with everything else that happens to him or his business, this is not Brandt’s fault (in his mind). It’s the damn state and the City for having too many rules! How can a gay man follow all of these homophobic business rules! You must be a RAAACIST! too!
Brandt insists that he fell behind on his payment of sales tax to the state. After several warnings, the state filed paperwork with the City of Chicago to prevent Brandt from doing business until he paid his back taxes. Brandt ignored those notices and kept operating anyway, thus incurring fines from the City for noncompliance with these injunctions. Every month, Brandt would chalk up a fine for not having his state taxes paid…and then more fines from the City for operating without the proper licenses. So, he got deeper and deeper into debt but his logic was that “I need to stay open to be able to make money to pay off the debt”.
That might sound like a plausible excuse to some people, at first, but let’s think about something that Brandt’s not mentioning; it’s something that appears on every receipt for anything that was purchased at Pie Hole: the state sales tax was always charged to customers and was paid for at the time of sale by people buying food and drink there.
Pie Hole collected sales tax from people – but then Brandt didn’t send a check to the state each month handing over that sales tax. Instead, he kept that tax money and counted it as profit for Pie Hole. This is how he got into trouble with the state. It was not because Illinois decided to persecute a gay man…or punish him because black youth used to hang out at his old location and mug people after eating his free pizza…or because someone in the City government plots against him.
Brandt didn’t give the state the sales tax he charged his customers and when the state demanded what it was owed Brandt kept doing the thing he was told to stop doing until the City finally had to shut him down for good.
Doug Brandt, of course, has been complaining on Twitter and Facebook that he’ll be arrested if he is caught selling pizza — clearly painting himself as a victim again who is being hassled by the police when he’s “just trying to make good food and keep people happy and hope and change and unicorns!”. It should come as absolutely no surprise to you that Brandt was also a big “Occupy Wall Street” supporter, as also noted on his Facebook:
On a very personal note, I want to take a minute to say how heartsick I feel about this whole Pie Hole story.
It’s been a real roller coaster for me emotionally because I absolutely loved the food at this place — so much so that I’ve incorporated a little of Pie Hole’s style into my own cooking (making a frozen sausage pizza into an After School Special with the addition of a few rainbow colored marshmallows right before I pull it out of the oven…and coming up with fun, holiday-themed pizzas to make for my boyfriend Justin and I throughout the year, such as a Thanksgiving pizza with leftover turkey and cranberry sauce with sweet potatoes and stuffing on top). From 2005 when I first moved to Chicago until 2009 or so when the crime in the neighborhood started getting really bad, I loved going to Pie Hole, talking to the great staff, and enjoying the very cool vibe this pizza joint rocked. There were paintings of drag queens up on the walls…there was funky music playing and a host of very unique shots to sample back when they still had their liquor license.
But then, because of Brandt’s decision to run a makeshift youth center late at night, Pie Hole started feeling unsafe. More often then not, about a year before the place closed, if I’d walk by Pie Hole to grab a slice on the way home from the bars I’d see either a fight taking place on the Sidewalk outside or squad cars with their lights flashing to chase away a gang of thugs who’d assembled for a rumble in the parking lot directly across from Pie Hole. There was a troop of black transvestites who terrorized the strip for a while, cutting people and taking their money after putting on their makeup at Pie Hole (like this was Gotham City or a really scary episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race).
Reporting on the violence the Center on Halsted has been importing into Boystown I had to talk about Pie Hole’s role in keeping the crime going into the late hours of the night — and for that I received the Alinsky treatment from Brandt (who had always been nice to me before and whom I thought well of until he decided to attack me on Twitter). I really hoped he’d solidified a better business model and had learned his lesson at the new Broadway location…because the place was JUMPING almost every time I walked past it.
It’s really a damn shame that Brandt decided not to pay the state its taxes — after charging his customers that tax.I don’t understand how he thought he’d get away with that.
None of the Pie Hole obituaries that are popping up in the gay papers here in Chicago are mentioning this last bit…though of course I’ve seen some that complain about “racists who didn’t like that Pie Hole attracted black people” late at night or that mock the neighbors who asked Brandt to behave professionally when he moved to his new location.
I wanted to share all of the above with you because it’s a pretty classic look into the attitude of many gay-run businesses…with a lot of this thinking easily applied to the Left in general. It goes something like this:
1. Nothing that happens to you is ever your fault — it is always racists or homophobes who have done something bad to you that you did not deserve or precipitate
2. Rules are bothersome and are there only for other people, never you, because you are special
3. It’s racist, homophobic, or some other terrible thing to criticize anything you do because you are always right and anyone who disagrees with you must be mocked and called pejoratives
4. You shouldn’t have to pay that (whatever it is) because you are YOU and whoever is trying to make you pay that thing is just a racist homophobe — quick, call that person a bad name, threaten to hurt him in some way, and say you wish he dies a horrible and painful death (and if he’s gay too, and has criticized you, say you hope he gets AIDS)
5. Occupy Wall Street!
6. Obama 2012!
This all leads inevitably to…
7. Gone Out of Business.
R.I.P. Pie Hole Pizza Joint
© 2012, Kevin DuJan. All rights reserved.
Also Recommended:
- Sad news in Boystown: Pie Hole Pizza Joint closing in May 2010
- Pie Hole Pizza Joint Update
- What's left after the After School Specials? Pie Hole Pizza Joint's demise teaches a lesson about Liberalism's ruinous impact on small businesses
- Pie Hole Update — another casualty of the crime surge in Boystown
- Help save the Pie Hole
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I love the way you write Kevin! You bring the situation "alive" like no other essayist can. Facts are stinky things to some and you're not afraid to put them out there despite who may be offended by them. As far as this business closing I think an appropriate epitaph would be this quote from Mark Twain "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it."
LOL Great Quote Cindy!
BTW Kevin, when are you going to write a book about how the modern, forever-continuous campaign industry of political consultants, etc… have ruined our political process and our government?
Ok let's pay a $750 dollar fine EVERY month we don't buy a $600 business license….I didn't go to Wharton Business School or get a Harvard MBA but even I can see that is just bad business! Sense of Entitlement much?
Incidentally, this is a great reason to Not Open A Business In Chicago. Here in a good sized red city in a neighboring, saner state, it costs, oh, $50 a year for the business license for a busy restaurant. And people wonder why our unemployment rate is lower.
Personal accountability just never seems to apply to those on the leftist/Obamacrat plantation. This is a sad ending, however, because it seems this could have been a wonderful small business success story had the pizza place simply been guided by someone with considerably less of the leftist entitlement/above-the-law mentality. One will never, ever hear the leftist-in-chief BO taking accountability, responsibility for anything either. There is always some one or some thing else to blame for his failures. After all, it's right there in his Chicago thuggery playbook. Maybe there should be a pizza called the Saul Alinsky Radical?
Speaking of such…..
2012: Bankrupt the Media!
Turn Off!
Tune Out!
Do not buy Print (media).
It is time abused consumers put the Lame Stream Media corporations out of business.
Stop buying their crap!!!!!
Thank you Kevin for the update.
Honest people can use the "flesh" put upon the bone with examples and explanations such as yours.
All too often we know what is going on, but the LieStream Media covers up or misleads on the facts.
It is good to have a down-on-the-ground report to be able to point to specifically as an example!