‘A very big ‘wow’ moment’: Billy Bricks celebrates 20 years of wood-fired, brick-oven pizza in the suburbs

Most people come home from a vacation with photos and souvenirs. The founder and namesake of Billy Bricks came home from a trip 20 years ago with a taste for wood-fired pizza.

CEO Ric Gruber said that taste stuck with his dad, Bill Wilson, for years. When he couldn’t find any brick-oven pizzerias in the Chicago area, he decided to open his own.

“Everybody is pretty familiar with the style now, it’s part of the culture,” Gruber said. “Twenty years ago there were only maybe five brick ovens in all of Illinois.”

It wasn’t just the crispy, chewy crust or the aroma of the burning wood that attracted Wilson. Gruber and his dad couldn’t believe how quickly the pizzas cooked.

“To get our pizza in under five minutes was really shocking at the time,” Gruber said. “That really just stuck in his head until he decided to do this.”

Wilson opened the first restaurant, which has tweaked its name a couple of times over the years from Brix to Bricks to Billy Bricks, in Lombard in 2005.

After a dozen years, Wilson opened a second location in a spot in downtown Wheaton. Another restaurant in Naperville followed a year later. They currently have seven pizzerias and operate seven food trucks throughout the suburbs.

Wilson retired in 2023 and passed the mantle to his son Ric, who said he was the third or fourth person on the payroll. Gruber initially started out by helping out at lunch during his summer break from college.

“I’m still the fastest anyone has seen at the sandwich station,” he jokes.

Gruber said the inspiration for their pies is taken from the style of Neapolitan pizza and pizzerias in New Haven, Connecticut, describing it as “neo-Neapolitan.”

“We’ve taken from those traditions and then we do it our own way,” he said.

The difference is in the baking style. Traditional wood-fired Neapolitan pizzas are cooked hot and fast. While two and a half minutes at 800 degrees sounds pretty hot and pretty fast, it’s about a hundred degrees cooler and a minute longer than other methods.

“That bake time gives it a very unique texture to give you a little more chew,” Gruber said. “We didn’t want to copy this style or that style, we wanted to make Billy Bricks pizza.”

They also import their flour from Italy and specially select the tomatoes for their sauce from a local company.

“They’ve been around a hundred years and we know exactly where our tomatoes come from and that we’re getting the absolute freshest and ripest,” he said.

While each Billy Bricks location is different, they share common styles and themes. From the start they’ve included an open kitchen where you can watch your pizza being fired.

“Having an open kitchen where you’re watching your pizza made in front of you was a very non-Chicago thing 20 years ago,” Gruber said. “So that was just a very, very unique concept altogether. Being from here and seeing that for the first time, and then tasting it. It was just a very big ‘wow’ moment.”

It’s all part of the guest experience that Gruber calls “premier casual,” a term he coined to describe service that is elevated from other restaurants where you order from a counter.

“Once you sit down (after you order), we turn into a full-service restaurant,” he said. “That really is a differentiator for us from most other concepts. I love the fact that the experience is unique to us, and I believe it’s a big part of what has made us successful.”

Pizza isn’t the only thing that goes in the oven at Billy Bricks. The sandwiches, which use Grande Cheese from Wisconsin and Boar’s Head meats, start with par-baked bread that is finished in the oven, then the meats and cheeses go in as well. The menu also offers a variety of salads, appetizers, pastas and desserts.

Inspired by their love of pizza making, Billy Bricks has started offering family-friendly classes where aspiring pizzaiolos of all ages can stretch some dough and learn the do’s and don’ts of toppings and oven management.

The spring lineup of classes can be found at billybrickshq.com/pizza-making-classes. The $40-$50 price includes a 12-inch pizza made by the participant, a beer (21+) or NA beverage, and a choice of ice cream or a slice of cake for dessert.