Two Decades of Pies
By Naperville Magazine
Appears in the July 2025 issue.
By Peter Gianopulos
From restaurants to food trucks, Billy Bricks Pizza celebrates 20 years
The origin stories of some pizza joints are as bland as week-old dough. Not so for the 20-year-old legend, Billy Bricks Pizza whose beginnings include hustle, muscle, and a justifiable instance of grand theft.
Flash back to two decades ago. During a family vacation out West, Bill Wilson watched in awe as a chef slid a gooey frisbee of pizza dough into a roaring brick oven and pulled out a perfectly cooked pie in just five minutes flat. For Bill, it was culinary love at first sight. Somewhere between bite two and three, he told his family, “When I get home, I’m opening my own brick pizza place.”
His college-age stepson, Ric Gruber, was dubious. “What the hell,” he shot back, “do you know about running restaurants?”
Turns out, ol’ Bill knew plenty. In his younger days, Bill manned fried chicken stations, supervised pizza joints, and ran an Indiana University bar called The Regulator—a favorite watering hole for legendary Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski. Quicker than you could say marinara, Bill leased a space in Lombard, made a few calls, and installed what he insists is one of the first brick pizza ovens in the entire state.
Crazy thing is, his dream almost ended a few years later, when his landlord tried to boot him from the space. Bill didn’t flinch. He quickly brokered a new lease just down the street, then he rented a forklift. Under the cover of darkness, he enlisted Ric to help him remove said oven with his forklift, roll it down the street, and install it in its new home in what Ric refers to as “Operation: Snatch and Grab.”
It would be far from the last crisis in the Billy Bricks saga. Eight years ago, Ric put his law career on hold to help his pops take his pizza concept to a new level. It was Ric, thanks to his college days in Connecticut, who introduced New Haven-style pies to Billy’s menu. They’re still brick-fired but at a lower temp for longer, creating blistered goodness sans the Neapolitan-style floppy middle.
From then on the duo just kept innovating. By investing in a series of pizza trucks and trailers, they went mobile. Then shortly before the pandemic, Ric decided to partner with Grubhub—under a ghost name—to field test an ultra-thin, 14-inch, Puglia-style pie and delivery, both of which are now company staples.
Today, Billy Bricks boasts seven spots, its mobile fleet, and even an ice cream truck. As for the pizza itself? They import Italian Le 5 Stagioni Flour, refined in one of oldest flour mills in Europe. “All the best pizza-makers in Italy use it because it’s the best,” says Ric, who took over as CEO in 2023, “so why shouldn’t we use it?” Bricks’ pizza sauce—sweetly redolent with fistfuls of oregano and basil—is a family recipe. And then there’s the cheese. Ric doesn’t use straight mozzarella. “Tastes too much like string cheese,” he says. He prefers a 50-50 mozzarella to provolone blend that adheres to his dough like a hot-off-the-press grilled cheese sandwich.
As for the next adventure? Ric has some ideas, including the potential revival of one of Billy’s old Mexican joints—Pancho Pepper’s Mexican Café. “I own all the IP,” says Ric, providing more proof that some tomatoes never fall too far from the vine.
Photos: Billy Bricks Pizza
