Marc Malnati

Marc Malnati is an American restaurateur, businessman, and philanthropist. He is one of the owners of Lou Malnati's Pizzeria, a Chicago-style pizza chain founded by his parents in Lincolnwood, Illinois, in 1971. He is also co-chair of the Lou Malnati Cancer Research Foundation.

Early life Malnati is the son of Lou and Jean Malnati, and is of Italian descent. They opened the first Lou Malnati's Pizzeria in Lincolnwood in 1971. Lou Malnati died in 1978, and Marc Malnati joined the family business that year.

Career In 2013, Malnati appeared on The Daily Show after Jon Stewart mocked Chicago deep-dish pizza. Eater Chicago said the appearance produced a "truce of sorts". In a 2024 retrospective, the publication revisited the exchange as part of what it called Chicago's "pizza war" with Stewart.

By 2016, Nation's Restaurant News described Malnati as the owner of Lou Malnati's Pizzeria.

In 2025, Malnati published Deep Dish: Inside the First 50 Years of Lou Malnati's Pizza.

Philanthropy Malnati is co-chair of the Lou Malnati Cancer Research Foundation and serves on the board of the Malnati Brain Tumor Institute at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. According to Northwestern Medicine, the family's charitable work began in 1971 with an annual benefit in memory of Brian Piccolo. After Lou Malnati's death in 1978, Jean Malnati and her sons Marc and Rick redirected the effort toward cancer research and treatment.

Honors In 1995, Malnati and his brother Rick were named among Chicago magazine's "Chicagoans of the Year", alongside the minister Wayne Gordon.

Selected bibliography