Bob and Christy Watts stand next to their unique oven at the new Brick Oven restaurant in Rock Spring.Serving others is what Marine Corps veteran Bob Watts, of Kensington, is all about. Opening the new Brick Oven restaurant in Rock Spring is his chance to bring service to his home territory in Walker County.
Starting out in the pizza business, Watts, his wife Christy and their son Jake and daughter Lindsey traveled around for a few years serving pizza at festivals and charity events. After the April 27, 2011 local tornadoes, the family took their rolling pizza business to Flintstone to feed families impacted by the storms, as well as utility and emergency workers, for free.
“I served my country and I love my country and my community,” said Watts. “Now I am here to serve the community. We are put here on this earth to serve our fellow man. I’ve heard from customers that this is the best pizza they’ve ever eaten. People go crazy about it because it’s such a great product.”
The brick oven in which he cooks the pizzas not only provides great, authentic flavor, it offers instant gratification – the pizzas are cooked to perfection in about 2.5 minutes.
“I sold my travel trailer oven. It is now used at New England Patriots games,” said Watts. “My new oven is imported from Italy. It’s called a refractory concrete oven. It’s designed for long-term high heat. The floor of the oven is about 725 degrees and the dome registers 200 degrees hotter. It’s true Italian pizza.
“It’s the way God intended for pizza to be eaten.”
The Brick Oven’s best-selling pies are the Meat Market Pizza with whole-milk mozzarella, pepperoni, Italian sausage, roughly chopped bacon and ham, and the Picnic Pizza with whole-milk mozzarella, house-made barbecue pulled pork, sweet barbecue sauce and Carolina barbecue sauce all topped with house-made barbecue rub.
“We keep it simple here,” said Watts. “You should be able to create everything with a minimal amount of ingredients. The product needs to be perfect. It needs to be better than anyone else’s pizza. We want to over-serve and give them more than they expect.”
To top it all off, customers can sample homemade ice cream made with an Amish machine. Available flavors are cookies and cream, chocolate with toffee and red, white and blue custard.
Located at 8009 US Hw 27 N. in Rock Spring, the restaurant can be reached at 706-375-4400. Watts said he tries to keep carryout customers’ wait times to 10-12 minutes.
To learn more, visit facebook.com/pages/Bobs-Brick-Oven/106472242780745.