HOLLAND TOWNSHIP, MI -- Sophia Leongas grew up eating Giordano's pizza in Chicago.



Now, she is opening the famed pizza-maker's first Michigan location.



"There's no pizza like this one," said Leongas. "They do it right. There's no shortcuts. It's all fresh ingredients."



Even for a second-generation restaurateur like Leongas, who has been working in the industry since she was a teenager, there's a learning curve.



"It's not like anything we have done before," Leongas said of bringing the restaurant to West Michigan.



She and her husband, Dave Jurgensen, own the popular Curragh in downtown Holland, an extension of a family of Irish pubs in the Chicago area.



Giordano's is a franchise. It's located at 3333 W Shore Dr., in a high-traffic retail neighborhood off U.S. 31 by other restaurants, big-box stores like Meijer and Target, and near hotels.

Popular Chicago pizzeria to open 1st Michigan location



She and Jurgensen own the franchise with Dean Georgelos, who will be be opening more locations across the state. A Detroit location is expected to be announced in October, and opened in 2017.



"Our intention is to make it so it is the exact same experience as eating in Chicago," Georgelos said.



Georgelos understands the Giordano's brand well. He previously worked for the company that helped define the Chicago-style pizza.



The restaurant opened Aug. 29 for dinner, and added lunch hours, starting Monday, Sept. 12. Delivery is available, and catering will be offered beginning in October.



A grand opening and ribbon-cutting is planned for Sept. 20.



A lot of planning and practice went into getting ready to open. From revamping a former Bagger Dave's restaurant to hiring staff, prep for the restaurant has been going on for five months. Training the kitchen staff began three months ago.



Employees' hands now quickly work from muscle memory. There's no tossing of ingredients on the dough. Instead, pieces are placed by hand, and the sauce is spread on in perfect circles, using the back of a spoon.

It takes six people to make one Giordano's deep dish stuffed pizza from scratch. (Allison Farrand | MLive.com)

The weekend before the restaurant quietly opened, staff rehearsed on friends and family over two evenings, giving away hundreds of pies for them to try.



Practice is needed because stuffed pizza is the most difficult entree on the menu.



"There's two layers of dough," Georgelos said. "That is what really differentiates us. We are a deep dish pizza, but it's stuffed."



It takes six people to make one Giordano's deep dish stuffed pizza from scratch.



The first person rolls the dough, the second person puts it in the pan; the third and fourth layers different ingredients, the fifth puts a lid, made of a thinner slice of dough, on the pizza; the sixth adds the sauce, marks the pizza and places it in the oven.



How a deep dish is made also depends on what the customer wants in the pizza. Some ingredients go under and some go over the cheese. Some get mixed in the shredded cheese and some go on top of the pizza.



Pepperoni is laid under the cheese while jardiniere and artichokes are planted on top. Spinach is distributed throughout the pizza instead of layering it on the bottom.



Depending on ingredients, one pizza takes five to eight minutes to assemble. Then, it takes 45 minutes to bake in the restaurant's large baker's oven or pizza deck, made with eight shelves.

While the menu also includes salads, sandwiches, pasta and appetizers like bruschetta and traditional Italian fried calamari with fried lemon slices, cherry peppers and green beans, about 70 percent of customers order the restaurant's stuffed pizza, Georgelos said.

Even with 20 ingredients to choose from, the most requested pizza is cheese, and the second is pepperoni.

Giordano's pizza is based on a 200-year-old recipe for the family's annual Easter pizza pie.

The story goes that brothers Efren and Joseph Boglio came over to Chicago, worked in some restaurants but felt they could make better pizza using their mom's Giordano family recipe.

Originally created with ricotta cheese, the brothers adapted the recipe to American taste buds with mozzarella made in Wisconsin.

The first Giordano's opened in 1974, and have grown to 59 corporate-owned and franchised-owned locations across Chicago, and in Minnesota, Florida and Indiana.



The Holland location is a 156-seat restaurant with a quarter of that seating on an enclosed patio outfitted with TVs and fans -- and heaters in the winter.



The kitchen at the front of the Holland Township restaurant reflects a new design for Giordano's. Customers can watch the pie making process through black-paned windows as they walk to their seats.



The interior design melds reclaimed barn wood, whitewashed brick and tall windows that draw in natural light. A dramatic two-sided fireplace divides the spaces, to provide more intimacy around the tables topped with butcher block and ringed with red chairs. At strategic locations around the restaurant, 16 TVs hang so customers can watch sporting events.



"We brought Chicago to Holland," Georgelos said.



One reason Holland was seen as a good location is because of the city's connection to Chicago. The tourist community, known for its tulip gardens and beaches, draws Chicagoans, and vice versa.



"We just felt like Holland would be the best place to put the first Giordano's in Michigan," said Georgelos. "Its proximity to Chicago certainly helps, but the community is certainly fantastic."

The owners of the first Giordano's Pizza in Michigan are David Jurgensen, Sophia Leongas and Dean Georgelos, shown at the newly-opened restaurant in Holland Township on Thursday, September 1, 2016. (Allison Farrand | MLive.com)

The Mediterranean menu is a natural fit for Leongas, the daughter of a Greek immigrant. The secret to a successful restaurant, whether it is serving traditional Irish or Italian fare, is setting the culture of hospitality. It is something that Leongas is passing along to her teenage kids, Zoe and Dimitri, who work at the family's restaurants.

In Greek culture, hospitality is called "Philoxenia," which means a friend to strangers, says Georgelos, who is also Greek.

As Leongas surveys the restaurant, she smiles when she catches a family passing around a slice of pizza to taste.

Part of the appeal of operating a Giordano's for Leongas and Jurgensen is that pizza is a shared experience.



"I can see this as a place you come for anniversaries and birthdays with the family because the pizza lends itself to sharing," Jurgensen said. His wife agrees.

"I just have to provide the hospitality -- the rest is here," Leongas said.

Restaurant hours (starting Sept. 12), will be 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.