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E-mail StoryTittl review: Red Brick Pizza aims to please in just a few minutes
| Wednesday, Jan 9 2008 12:52 PM
Last Updated: Wednesday, Jan 9 2008 3:21 PM
Chipotle is a business model in the restaurant industry that a lot of people would like to imitate: quality food at reasonable prices, a place that virtually invented a new niche in the industry called fast-casual. A place to go after work when no one wants to cook but is still OK for a family budget stressed by gas and energy bills.
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9500 Brimhall Road, 829-1010
Hours: 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day.
Prices: Salads $3.49 to $10.95, side dishes $2.95 to $12.95, sandwiches $7.49, personal pizzas $5.95 to $7.95, large $13.95 to $19.95. Child’s plate $7.95.
Payment: MasterCard, Visa American Express and Discover accepted. Does not accept The Californian’s Press Pass or personal checks.
Dress: Casual
Amenities: Wheelchair accessible; beer and wine served; some vegetarian options.
Food: 21⁄2 stars
Atmosphere: 3 stars
Service: 21⁄2 stars
Next week: Red Pepper
Photos:
Red Brick Pizza’s menu features about a dozen gelato flavors.
Some offerings are served sandwich-style.
Now in Bakersfield we have the chain that wants to be the Italian equivalent of the gourmet Mexican restaurant: Red Brick Pizza. Founder James Dean Minidis, a former Little Caesars franchisee for 12 years, thought the bargain pizza niche was too crowded, so he created a more upscale, fast-casual concept with gas-fired brick ovens, exhibition kitchens, gelato, chopped salads, flat-screen TVs in each booth and small spaces that seat about 40 customers but deliver those pizzas super fast. The company, based in Palmdale, wants to reach the 12,000-restaurant level within 10 years, according to an article at fastcasual.com, where Minidis was quoted as saying he hoped his chain would become the Starbucks of the pizza business.
That same article said that ideally six minutes would pass from the time the order was taken to the time the food reached the table, possible only because of the high temperature of the oven and the special proprietary recipes. (The menu promises three minutes baking time.) Well, when we visited we were comforted by what had to be a dozen pizza assemblers, mostly males wearing black berets, working fast and furious on the line. They looked like political rebels toiling for the Fatherland. Unfortunately our order must’ve gotten misplaced as it took 40 minutes for the food to arrive. Other customers were served more promptly, it seemed.
We ordered one of the Fhazanis, a sandwich made with fresh pizza crust and the ingredients folded inside like a taco. We selected the ham and cheese ($7.49), as well as a personal bacon cheeseburger pizza ($7.49) and a large pepperoni ($15.95). The gelato, well, we had to wait to sample that.
The product isn’t bad, and I can see some of the touches that are very Chipotle-esque. There are six different “crust treatments,” including pesto Parmesan, sun-dried tomato basil and Parmesan garlic. The crust is thin and somewhat smoky, but to get the pizzas out that fast there’s a sparseness to the ingredients that will make it seem like an odd pizza. For example, the bacon cheeseburger pizza had little nuggets of ground beef that look and taste like something on a frozen pizza. Not much bacon either, but an interesting cheese mix (provolone, white cheddar, mozzarella).
The big star to me was the sandwich, which had great vegetables such as cucumbers, Romaine lettuce and tomatoes. The ham and cheese had the three cheeses I mentioned above, plus a ranch dressing. Definitely not something you can get at Subway. And I just loved the freshness of the vegetables, particularly the cucumber, that made it seem like a bold alternative to a standard sandwich. The bread reminded me of the naan you might find in Indian restaurants.
Overall, Red Brick has 16 different pizzas, including Thai chicken, roasted garlic chicken or shrimp and a veggie gourmet works that looks like a real effort to offer those folks something worth their time. And the TV presence is amazing: big screens on the walls showing DVD movie previews, with smaller sets at the booths turned to different channels. Like I said in previous reviews, the TV in restaurants trend has really picked up momentum. It’s getting real difficult to escape the media at a meal.
The gelato was a draw, with about a dozen different flavors including a chocolate peanut butter variety and a chocolate banana nut version that was worth a visit ($4.50 for a medium, $5.49 for a large). And I must mention that the younger companions did note that the soda fountain had “the good ice,” which is somewhat similar to the nuggets that Sonic Drive-In is famous for. Given Bakersfield’s heat, it is little wonder that some of our residents have taken to close scrutiny of the nuances of ice shapes.