April 25, 2025
Business | Northwest Herald
Business

Woodstock business owner keeps father's legacy alive with Pirro's

By NATE LINHART
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In this photo, Brianna Pirro and her father, Terry Pirro, demonstrate their line of sauces together in 2012. Terry Pirro died last May after a four-year battle with cancer. His daughter keeps the business going to honor him. (Photo provided)

WOODSTOCK – For 16 years, Brianna Pirro's father, Terry, owned an Italian restaurant, Pirro's Restaurante, formerly located at 228 Main St. in Woodstock. However, he had to give up his restaurant after he was diagnosed with cancer, which ultimately resulted in the restaurant closing its doors in 2012.

The same year the restaurant closed, Brianna Pirro helped her father start a new business venture – Pirro’s, a pasta and pizza sauce company that distributes jars of their sauces to various retailers.

“It’s very important to keep this going for him,” Brianna Pirro said. “My father passed away in May 2016, which I think has really driven me to expand the business and build on his legacy.”

Pirro said that while her father was battling cancer and going through treatment, they put the company on the back burner for a while.

“But lately, it’s been scaling up and moving in the right direction,” Pirro said.

The sauce-making company offers six different types of sauces: marinara, pesto pomodoro, rustic vodka, bolognese, puttanesca and pizza sauce. The sauces are a mix of her grandma’s recipes with the addition of some minor tweaks by her father.

“They’re all just absolutely delicious and incredible right out of the jar,” Pirro said. “We pride ourselves in getting the best ingredients to use.”

In addition to the sauces being gluten-free, Pirro said they’re in the process of trying to get the ingredients to be non-GMO.

“And everything is American-made, as the label, the jar and all the ingredients were made in the United States,” Pirro said.

Working out of her Woodstock home, Pirro said she she’s been building the brand by promoting the company’s products on social media and through demos at local retailers.

“It’s nice because there’s not a lot of overhead,” Pirro said.

Consumers can find Pirro's sauces at Joseph's Marketplace in Crystal Lake, at Whole Foods Market stores and at several other Illinois retailers. While it's only being sold in the state, Pirro said she's hoping to expand the brand nationally down the road.

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