Piece, Chicago's New Haven pizza and brew palace on North Avenue, has been named "independent pizzeria of the year" by Pizza Today magazine. That makes Piece guru Bill Jacobs its August cover boy and means extra celebrating for the Jacobs brothers: July 27th marks Piece’s 10th anniversary in Chicago.

So what’s Jacobs' go-to pizza for celebrating? "I am huge fan of pepperoni and banana peppers pizza," he said when The Stew caught up with him. "And a classic New Haven pizza is a white clam pizza -- I love to put bacon on that as well."

For toasting? "I would go with a Heferweizen, a Bavarian wheat beer."

Pizza Today, a Louisville-based industry magazine, chose Piece from among the roughly 35,000 independent pizzerias in the United States, according to its top editor Jeremy White. "The company’s sales volume is astounding. It is one of the most successful independent pizzerias in the nation, hands down," he emailed. "Its product is unique in its market, its marketing is solid and it has obviously been honored for the quality of its beer in numerous competitions."

Piece is the first independent Chicago pizzeria to win in this, Pizza Today's 10th year of handing out the honor. Averaging 3,600 pizzas a week between its restaurant and delivery-takeout operations, Piece seems to have found an appetite in Chicago's pizza market amid the deep-dish, thin-crust and Neapolitan versions.

"My brothers and I grew up in New Haven with fantastic thin-crust pizza," Jacobs said. “It’s a chewy crust, yet a little crisp. You can fold it in at the edge. They’re cut not in squares but in triangles. And it’s not about how much you can put on the pizza. At Piece, we only encourage up to three toppings because the crust can only hold that much.”

So what’s next? "People ask 'Why aren’t there more Piece locations?' But it’s not about being the biggest. For us it’s about doing things very well and trying to be the best that we can be."