By: Deborah Johnson Wood
The grand opening of Uptown’s Brick Road Pizza is a few weeks away, and when it gets here the pizzeria will have much more to offer customers than just your everyday pizza.
How about a pizza with a meatball crust?
"We mix one pound of our free-range turkey sausage with meatball ingredients and flatten it in the pan to form the crust," says Cindy Talbert, co-owner with her husband, Jody. "We bake that, then add the toppings and put it back in the oven to cook them."
The shop’s signature Chicago Deep Dish Pizza is the Brick Road Pizza with a two-inch-thick crust covered in turkey meat products--pepperoni, sausage, ham--and onions, mushrooms, green pepper, cheese and the house sauce.
The menu also features vegan, vegetarian and traditional pizzas, vegan appetizers, vegan Buffalo wings and vegan desserts. Weekday lunch buffets and take-and-bake pizza are planned regular features.
“Jody and Cindy are really working to appeal to the vegan and vegetarian community,” says Heather Van Dyke-Titus of Bear Manor Properties. Bear Manor owns the building at 1017-1019 Wealthy St. SE.
“I think it’s a possibility Brick Road will become a landmark business, and community is built around that,” she adds. “I feel like a lot of people will feel like it’s ‘their place.’”
When customers walk into the eatery everything they see is something created by the Talbert family: daughter Sarah Piper created a jazz mural on one wall and painted each table with different themes; son Nick Talbert added funky frames to posters of musicians from different eras; Jody repurposed doors as booths, countertops and a room divider.
Customers coming in for take-out will find themselves in a faux Italian piazza complete with a water fountain.
Preceding the November 17 Grand Opening are a number of soft openings, including a vegan buffet on October 30 from 5 to 9 p.m.
“The Talberts plan to be here for the long term,” Van Dyke-Titus adds. “They want their grandson to take over the business, and right now he’s only two.”
Source: Heather Van Dyke-Titus, Bear Manor Properties
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Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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