The morning after their family's South Chicago pizzeria burned down, Len and Lena Ciannamea went back to visit. As they surveyed the charred remains of Capri’s on Commercial, longtime customers slowed down in their cars and snapped pictures. Social media flooded with messages hailing the restaurant, first opened in 1955, as a staple of their lives.

Len felt as though he was at a wake. “It brought tears to my eyes to know that the community recognized us as an institution,” Len said. “To be called an institution is an honor.” No one was hurt in the Feb. 24 blaze that a Fire Department spokesman said looks like an accident. But a lot of Chicagoans lost a special place.