At 2 p.m. Fridays, our Kathy Reiser answers restaurant questions. Put her to the test by clicking here or email kreiser@news-gazette.com.
Grabbing a bite with Joey Wright
Each week, we chop it up with the folks responsible for dishing up food around the area. What restaurant should we try next? Let Joey Wright know at jwright@news-gazette.com.
It runs in the family for Briks Pizza in Mahomet.
The pizzeria — which boasts a large facility and encourages folks to stay a while after their dining experience — has been open since October 2024 with an all-hands-on-deck approach.
“We have a brick oven from Italy and we make our dough in-house,” Kim Kellenberger said. “We’re an independent, family-owned restaurant so we’re not a chain. Me, my husband and my kids are kind of the runners of the pizzeria.”
Briks marks the first time the family — including Kim’s sons Cailer Brock and Rowan, daughters Jaci and Kebe and husband Neal — has ventured into the restaurant industry. So far, so good.
“When we opened Briks, we really wanted any position to be able to be done by any person,” Kim Kellenberger said. “So we worked really hard at streamlining every position to be possible for 16-year-olds to do … we have a pretty young crowd and they’re making the pizzas, which is really cool.”
Picking a favorite among 19 specialty pizzas — plus the option for customers to create their own pie — isn’t an easy task. Kim has her favorite — the mushroom pizza — while she says Mahomet has embraced both the Beast and Fire and Smoke pizzas.
“All of our signature pizzas we created as a family in the year before we opened,” Kim Kellenberger said. “We all really proud of all our signature pizzas, so overall I would say the Fire and Smoke is the one I’m most proud of just because it’s very unique and different and has pleased a lot of people.”
