This week I had the pleasure to interview Bill Delis, owner of Doreen’s Pizzeria. Full disclosure, I have known Bill and his family my whole life. We go to the same church and his son, Demetri, is one of my closest friends. However, just because I’ve known Bill for so long does not mean I know everything about him. I found his story to be so interesting and I think all of you will agree with me after reading this!
Bill Delis was born and raised in Hegewisch, IL. As a kid he loved sports. He told me he used to ride his bike to the playground and played everything. He played every sport he could. Baseball, football, basketball, etc. however, his favorite has always been football. In fact, he is a huge Dallas Cowboys fan and has high expectations for the next season. Bill mentioned, “Next season is VERY important for the cowboys. If you’re a New England Patriots fan you have to savor every second that has happened because you won’t realize it’s over until it’s over.” Bill’s love for the Dallas Cowboys actually started back in the 70’s because people would call his name, they would pronounce it DALL-IS instead of DELL-IS and it stuck with him. He said he started liking the cowboys because on top of the mispronunciation, they were doing so well back then. He goes on to say, “this year is important for several reasons. The first being, they have to make a big decision on their QB. If they’re going to invest that much money into their QB, then they kind of have to win the super bowl fairly quickly.” Bill has high hopes for the Cowboys this upcoming season and believes in their new coach Mike McCarthy. He even believes that the Cowboys can win the super bowl this coming season. So, write that down folks! You read it here first, if the Dallas Cowboys win the super bowl, Bill Delis called it on March 8, 2020.
Now onto a more serious note, when Bill was a child, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to be when he grew up. As he got older he started following in the footsteps of a few people he looked up to. They were all going into the computer information system field. So when Bill was older, he attended DeVry University, received a CIS degree, and graduated before he was even 21 years old. After graduation he started working in downtown Chicago, IL at CNA Insurance as a program analyst. He enjoyed it. In my opinion, I think he mostly enjoyed it because he was able to ride the train with Mia (his wife) every day before they were married. He told me he knew Mia his whole life, she was always someone that he looked at when he was younger and thought to himself “man, that’d be someone I’d want to be with when I was older of course.” God had a different plan! They married young at 22 & 23 years old.
When I asked Bill if he had always planned on running his own business he said, “No.” He was happy with his life at that point in time. He was perfectly happy with his career downtown in the information systems field. He worked there for 7 years. However, throughout that time he spent working at CNA, he tried a couple side businesses. He said he tried a tax preparation job where he and his partner would prepare peoples taxes during tax season. That led to doing bookkeeping on the side. So, he occasionally dipped his toe into being his own boss but wasn’t quite ready to take that step just yet. He went on to explain at that point in time, “the corporate world started downsizing at big companies and outsourcing departments to contractors who would come in and do the work. He started to worry and realized he might have to start jumping from job to job. Bill tells me, “I like stability.”
If you know Bill, then you know he is a very loyal man. He planned on working at his company for 30-40 years. However as he saw all this downsizing, he was also getting more into his faith as a Christian. At this point in his life, he was married and just had their first child, Demetri. So, Bill started bookkeeping and one of his accounts was Doreen’s Pizzeria. If you were wondering how Doreen’s ties into all of this, here you go. Back in 1986, Bill was the FIRST EVER employee hired at Doreen’s. He was a junior in high school. Throughout the years he became very good friends with the owner, Bob Wisz. He worked there throughout college and still worked there roughly one night a week or helped out whenever he could once he entered the corporate world. He eventually stopped working at Doreen’s and picked up bookkeeping again. He remained good friends with Bob even after he started another career.
Around 1996/97, Bob Wisz decided he wanted to enter politics in Chicago. He told Bill, and I’m paraphrasing here, “I’m probably not going to be able to run this Doreen’s business. Bill, find me a Greek boy to run it”. Mr. Delis and I actually laughed when talking about that part because if you know Greeks, you know many of them own restaurants. So that is why he asked Bill for a “Greek boy,” because they were either in the restaurant business or new someone who was. Over time, Bill was uncertain about his future. He told me “through prayer he said, “God lead me wherever you think.” Next thing you know, Bill became the Greek boy that Mr. Wisz found to run Doreen’s. Bill ended up buying Doreen’s Pizzeria in 1997.
When asked what made him decide to take the risk and buy Doreen’s, Bill said, “Prayer. God led me.” He goes on to explain that it really was a huge leap of faith. Bill and Mia were a young married couple, they didn’t have many opportunities at the time to save money because whatever they made went towards their house, monthly bills and most importantly, their child. It eventually worked out and Bill bought Doreen’s through a contract with Bob. He said, “At that point, I was all in. I was taking that risk.” I sure am glad he did because I just want you all to know, I love Doreen’s. I’m not even kidding, I order from there all the time.
One question I asked Bill was, “what is one unforeseen success that you’ve had.” I have to say, I loved his answer. It is great. He says “A big blessing for me was, even though I worked a lot of hours those first couple of years I owned the business, once my son was starting to love sports I had established the business in both locations to the point where I could spend that time with him. If I was still in the corporate world, I might not have gotten that time with him. For example, like taking a vacation and going to Greece. Showing my roots, our family’s roots, to my children. That was a big, big unforeseen blessing for me.”
Speaking of success, I asked Bill what his definition was. He told me success is “How well I am doing as a Christian. God is going to define for me what my success is because as a Christian we’re looking to fulfill the commission of Christ which is to preach and spread the Gospel and the love of Jesus Christ. That defines me first and foremost as that. After that, being the best husband I can be in my marriage, that is the ultimate success. Then that runs into being the best father I can be for my kids.” (He has two, I didn’t forget about you Maria, here is your shout out. Woot! Woot!). He continues, “that’s how I define success. The best son I can be for my parents and the best person I can be for my family and friends.”
When speaking more about Doreen’s, I had asked Bill what he wishes he would have known when he first started his own business. He says, “It is not for everybody. You have to have the mental makeup to be able to be successful, not only financially but also mentally.” He goes on to say, “The mental game is very difficult. When you work for corporate America, and you have your stresses, you can go home and put them to rest. When you own a business, there is no going home and putting it to rest. My business is open from 10 a.m. – 10 p.m. and even when you’re not there it is still running and you are wondering what is going on there.” He also explained the importance of balance. What I learned from Bill was that if you are going to start your own business, you have to learn to balance work and life. You have to be the best father, husband, wife, son, brother, sister, etc. “You have to really know how to shut that (the business) off. It is very difficult to do.”
Bill’s advice to any entrepreneur out there who might be reading this. He said, “Number one. I would almost advise against it because it [owning a business] is so difficult to balance it as opposed to working for a company because I know people -and I am NOT judging- I know people who are very successful financially but personally they are miserable because they cannot shut it off.” He repeats that it is difficult and he is in no way judging those people who cannot turn away from work. Bill feels as if God has really blessed him. He says he’s blessed to point where “even when I’m not there, thank God I’ve had nothing catastrophic happen.” He says people ask him all the time, “how can you leave, they can be stealing from you or not serving your food right, this and that,” and he replies, “For me this is the way I do it. I trust, I do the best I can, and I know there is more to life than just business. The time that I am going to have with my kids until they go off on their own, I’m never going to get that back”. Like I said earlier, Bill is very loyal. He trusts his employees and he knows he hires the right kind of people. That’s how he knows he can leave them alone at the restaurants. He actually told me a story about how his father used to kind of scare him when he first started out. He said once I started backing off the business a little bit, my dad would say, “why are you home? Why aren’t you at work doing this and doing that?” and Bill would say, “dad, this is the way I am doing it and I am trusting in God that it is all going to work out. And thank God up to this point it has.”
One last tip he wanted to share with entrepreneurs (or anyone really) is “If you’re going to be miserable when you’re at work, and miserable when you’re out of work, get out of the business. No money can bring happiness”. Now, Mr. Delis is not all about business, as you can see above, he is a man of God, a family man, a sports fan and just an all-around awesome person. When I asked him what he does besides work his response was “a lot.” He was kidding, of course, with the short answer. He actually does a lot though. He spends much of his time in church as a Sunday school instructor, athletic director, and oversees Junior Olympics (which is an event hosted every year by the Greek Orthodox Churches from multiple states). He also coaches the church basketball team. He says he tries his best to teach the kids life lessons through basketball. Going back to where he came from, Bill takes care of his Hegewisch church as well. He does whatever he can to help. “I love the Hegewisch church. It is special and everyone loves it,” he said. Bill also likes to work out, play competitive baseball in his 30 and over league, and plays basketball on Tuesdays at the church with his fellow Greeks. He says he just does it for enjoyment and that he loves playing. I don’t know if I buy that because I’ve played against him and trust me you do not want him guarding you.
My final question for Bill was, “if you could have dinner with someone dead or alive who would it be and why?” I know him well enough to know he was going to say Jesus Christ. He said, “As a Christian we say we look forward to eternity because our time on earth is so quick. I remember you, Peter, when you were a little kid and now you’re a grown man and are married to Lea and on your own. Where did the time go? Our time on Earth is limited. My advice to anybody is to spend more time thinking more about eternity than your present.Because before you know it you’re going to be 50 years old and have a bald head like me and realize life is so short and what do you want to leave behind? You want to live a Christian life so you can spend eternity with Jesus Christ.”
That was my favorite answer throughout the whole interview. It is such a powerful answer. I don’t think Bill realizes that when he speaks his words have so much meaning behind them and they are memorable. He is someone I look up to and the kids in his Sunday school class are so lucky to be learning from him. I specifically underlined that quote above because it is so important. He is exactly right. I hope you all enjoyed getting to know Bill Delis and realize what a great man, husband, father, coach, son, etc. he is. I hope you all continue to follow along and get to know more people in our community.
God Bless,
Until next time,
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