I would have never known of the existence of Chuck’s Place Restaurant, 406 N. Main St. in Thiensville, were it not for social media. One of my Yelp friends checked in at Chuck’s Place using the mobile app, and the comments exchanged between a few Yelpers intrigued me.

The website provides a thorough history of Chuck’s Place, which I was grateful to find and will summarize for you.

Over forty years ago, Chuck Freedman had a dream of being the first to bring Chicago style deep dish and stuffed pizza to Milwaukee. He spent months trying to perfect the recipes for the sauce, crust and Italian garlic sausage which were kept as close secrets in Chicago.

In 1971, Freedman opened Pizzeria Numero Uno in Shorewood, and in 1986, he closed the business after being diagnosed with cancer. Thanks to modern medicine and Freedman’s will to live, he became a cancer survivor and opened Chuck’s Place in 1988.

The new restaurant would add two of Freedman’s loves, breakfast and sandwiches, to the menu, as well as dinner entrees.

I recommend visiting the website to learn more about Freedman’s relationship to Milwaukee’s beloved George Webb restaurants.

Chuck’s Place was purchased in 2000 by current owner Ted Hagen, a former 20-year employee of Chuck’s Place under Freedman. Hagen continues the tradition established by Freedman using the same pizza recipes.

Before my visit, I reviewed their menu online and determined that I would need more help than usual to explore the three different pizza crust styles. I coordinated calendars with a few friends and arrived at Chuck’s Place with a party of five.

After navigating a somewhat narrow entrance and passing the counter seating, we entered a wide open dining room and were seated immediately. I was distracted by the adjacent room which appeared to be a "four seasons" room with white, plastic patio furniture.

Even though the room was enclosed and had a roof over it, I thought it would be a nice place to enjoy brunch and a summer beverage.

Eventually I snapped out of my trance and turned my attention to the menu while asking my friends their preferences and deal breakers for pizza toppings.

However, before I even got that far, one of my dining mates asked the server to bring us an order of French fried cheese. Yes, I definitely had the right people for the job.

The French Fried Cheese a La Stauber, as it is formally known, takes large cubes of mozzarella cheese, dips them in a batter similar to one found on fried cod, deep fries them and serves them with a secret sauce which tasted a lot like ketchup but a tad sweeter and thinner in texture.

I think I could create a similar sauce mixing one part ketchup with one part Catalina dressing.

The menu at Chuck’s Place is busy … very busy. There’s something for everyone and everyone that they know, too.

It starts with homemade soups, salads, burgers, deli-style sandwiches, 18 different house sandwiches including a Reuben, tenderloin steak sandwich, bratwurst, grilled turkey burger, and others.

Then it switches to "Marvelous Melts," hot plate sandwiches, sides, and starters. That was all just the first page.

House specialties include BBQ pork ribs and a low-carb hamburger steak. Add rotisserie chicken and duck, Italian dinners, seafood, and an Asian Stir Fry followed by the breakfast and pizza menus, and you’ve got a menu that would make Robert Irvine from "Restaurant: Impossible" shake his head in disbelief.

Luckily, we knew why we were there and placed out pizza order promptly. Then we continued to devour the French fried, cheesy goodness and patiently waited for the main event.

The pizzas come in three sizes. Thin crusts are 10, 13, and 15 inches starting at $8 for a cheese pizza. Chicago Deep Dish and Chuck’s stuffed pizzas are closer to 9, 11, and 14 inches.

The Chicago Deep Dish ranges from $9.50 to $15.50 with cheese only. The stuffed pizza ranges from $11.50 to $18.50.

Add $1.50 to $2.50 for over one pound of Italian Sausage, while any other toppings start at $.95 each for any of the three pizza style.

First to arrive was the Chicago Deep Dish with sausage and pepperoni. The pizza was baked and served in the two-inch deep pan. The crust had a very light buttery flavor. It was crispy around the perimeter and softer toward the center.

While the edge of the crust stood over and inch and a half tall, the crust was closer to a quarter inch in the center but then loaded with around a half inch of cheese, sausage and pepperoni.

The sausage was applied as small patties, which made me very happy considering Italian sausage is my favorite topping. I didn’t think it was very spicy but I did enjoy the flavor.

The pepperoni was also on the mild side, but oregano and other seasoning sprinkled on top provided a little spicy flavor.

Chuck’s pizza sauce had a fresh tomato taste, but unfortunately I’m not a fan of a fresh tomato taste unless it is accompanied but by a distinctly sweet or spicy blend of spices for added flavor.

Next up was the stuffed pizza which was also baked and served in a two inch pan. The stuffed pizza crust was around two inches tall around the edges and had more density than the crust on the Chicago deep dish pizza.

The crust seemed a bit dry to me around the edges compared to the Chicago deep dish crust which was slightly flaky, but the crust maintained a crisp texture throughout and held the weight of the heavy layers of cheese, sausage, pepperoni and onions well.

While the Chicago deep dish was topped with small sausage patties, the stuffed pizza included an entire solid layer of Italian sausage that was at least a quarter inch thick.

Chuck’s Place spreads the dough in the pan, adds a layer of cheese, then a layer of Italian sausage weighing in at over one pound, onions, pepperoni, more cheese and sauce.

Again, was elated by the thick layer of Italian sausage. The same tomato sauce is used, but it was less pronounced due to the thick layers of cheese and sausage that dominated the flavor of the pie, in a good way.

Finally, we explored was the Brown Deer pizza. Sliced Wisconsin bratwurst, onions, mozzarella and cheddar cheese top a hand-tossed thin crust.

The crust was slightly crisp, but not the cracker thin crust was I hoping to find. I also thought there was just a bit too much flour coating the crust which created a slightly dry texture.

Flavors of cheddar cheese and onions dominated this pizza for me. I would have liked thicker slices of bratwurst or just more slices of bratwurst to offset the cheddar and onions.

I anticipated the bratwurst being the star of this pizza based on the description, but I didn’t get that from the finished product. However, I think Cheddar cheese fans should enjoy the Brown Deer pizza.

All of the specialty pizzas are named for various Southeastern Wisconsin municipalities, such as the Grafton topped with cauliflower, broccoli, mushrooms, onions and spinach on Chuck’s tomato sauce with mozzarella cheese and the Thiensville with roast beef dipped in peanut oil with garlic, green peppers, mozzarella and parmesan cheese.

The Germantown pizza is made to simulate a Reuben, topped with kosher style corned beef, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and a special sauce.

Of the three pizzas my friends and I sampled, we seemed to agree that the Chicago deep dish pizza was our favorite. For some of us, it was the ratio of toppings to crust. For others, it was the crust itself.

If the stuffed pizza was topped with more sauce, and more seasoning in the sauce, to help offset the dense and somewhat dry texture of the crust around the perimeter, it might have edged out the Chicago deep dish for me.

It’s a bit ironic for me to say that because I’m the first to complain about a deep dish crust or stuffed crust that is saturated in butter or oil. I’m looking for a happy medium, I guess, but considering I’d take a thin cracker crust over any other crust on any other day, who cares what I think about deep dish crusts? That was rhetorical, by the way.

The important thing is that I gave Chuck’s Place a try and now you know they’re out there. Plus, I now have another breakfast place on my "to-dine" list, so I’m pretty excited about that.

Don’t worry, I don’t think I’ll be starting a breakfast blog. I like sleeping in on weekends.