DUNLAP – Pizza will play anywhere, and that's nowhere more apparent than at Knuckles Pizza & Sports Bar, where the owners draw on experiences from all over the United States to make their signature pies.

Ryan Moore and Cecilia Workman have been serving up long, thin slices of their Quad Cities-style pizza for about 10 years, and Workman said they are having their best year ever.

"It's really due to the community and people in those neighborhoods," Moore said, pointing to Lake of the Woods and other surrounding subdivisions near their eatery.

Times are good at Knuckles, and Moore and Workman believe the best is yet to come. They're considering a beer garden out back and want to draw more people into their dining room, which features distressed wood taken from an 1800s-era train yard.

"When we hear that people haven't heard of us or they haven't tried it, we view that as a sign that our market is still growing," Workman said.

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So what is Quad Cities-style pizza?

Moore says it's a hand-tossed crust that is crispy on the bottom, but has "body" on the top. It's malted and has a hint of molasses, giving it a sweeter taste than most pizzas.

The sauce has some salt to it, but is really just a basic red sauce. Yet, putting them together gives one the sense of salty and sweet at the same time.

And the pies are cut in strips – not squares or triangles. And yes, the pizza does come with a specially-made spatula that is long and narrow, just like the slices.

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From X-rays to pizza

Moore, a Peoria native, said he developed an undying love for pizza as a kid when his parents, who are from the Quad Cities, used to order the city's signature pies on holidays. That grew into jobs working at several pizzerias, such as Godfather's and the venerable Agatucci's.

He learned the trade from QC pizza makers, developed his tastes and, in December 2011, he and Workman made the plunge to open Knuckles. But it didn't come easy.

"The bank didn't want to give us the money for the building as a pizza place, so we used it for my parents' mobile X-ray business," he said. The building is quite big and could easily fit a small, carryout pizzeria."

A few years later, they sold the X-ray biz and expanded the dining room – the rest, as they say, is history.

Speaking of history, the name came from Moore's love of baseball. One of the pitchers in the movie "Field of Dreams" was nicknamed "Knuckles." He liked the character in the film and decided to name the shop after him.

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Bigger space and menu

The pizzeria expanded about six years ago, adding a dining area. Workman and Moore said they expanded slowly to get their business established, but that the idea was always to have a dine-in area with a bar.

The inside has a vaulted wood ceiling and a large old-school bar. Both feature the distressed wood from the old train station. While their initial menu was just pizza, they have expanded over the years to include such items as wings, which Moore said are among the best in town.

"We smoke about 100 pounds of wings three to four times a week," he said.

They also offer salads, sandwiches and appetizers – but the focus is on the pizza.

Both said the past few years have been tough, but praised the surrounding community for its support. Without it, Knuckles would have gone under.

"The beginning of the pandemic, we had people lined up all the way down to the Route 40 sign to get a pizza. I wish I had gotten a picture of it, but we were so caught up in the moment," he said.

Workman said they are able to take in parties and large gatherings in their main dining area. Carryout is still offered, along with online delivery options such as Grubhub and DoorDash.

This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Peoria native makes Quad Cities-style pizza a staple in Dunlap