South alumni launch ‘Dawg House’
published on Febraury 19, 2009 in Pioneer Press papers
By MICHELLE STOFFEL mstoffel@pioneerlocal.com
As kids ordering hot dogs, burgers and fries at the Paradise Pup and Superdawg, Stino Milito and Scott Gatziolis talked about how much fun it would be to run a place of their own.
Two decades later, they did. The two Maine South graduates returned to their roots and opened the Dawg House Grill in late autumn 2008 at 1120 W. Touhy Ave. in Park Ridge.
“We both have families here and local ties through Maine South,” Milito said. “We know this place really well.”
The two met 23 years ago on the baseball diamond. Milito played for the Park Ridge Little League Cubs and Gatziolis played for the Sox. They remained friends throughout high school and college — Milito at Elmhurst College and Gatziolis at Northern Illinois University — and eventually both found themselves working in real estate. They never stopped talking about running their restaurant.
“We’ve always talked about it, for years,” Gatziolis said. “If we waited any longer, we’d never open. So we figured, it’s now or never.”
After deciding it was time to test out their boyhood idea, they searched the local area finding top distributors, making sure their ingredients will be fresh and each menu item is the best of the area.
What they considered the perfect spot also opened up. With the closing of Kentucky Fried Chicken on the corner of Touhy and Greenwood avenues, the men decided to buy it and open their dream hot-dog restaurant.
They had not imagined 14-hour days when they dreamed up their business, but coming from sports backgrounds, neither shied from hard work.
Milito played on his high school golf team, and Gatziolis was part of Maine South’s 1995 State Championship football team. For nostalgia’s sake, a large photo of the team hangs on the wall among other sports memorabilia inside the blue-and-white building.
“We have our fingers crossed it’ll pay off in the end,” Gatziolis said. Right now they are catering and delivering, hoping to expand that aspect of their business.
Staying integrated in the community, The Dawg House Grill plans to sponsor its own Park Ridge little-league team in the spring, bringing their hometown experience full-circle.
Stino Milito and Scott Gatziolis, alumni of Maine South High School, have opened The Dawg House Grill at Touhy and Greenwood avenues in Park Ridge. (Brian O’Mahoney/Staff Photographer)
