W’bago’s Brickhouse Pizza opening branch in Kiester

The former Maple Cafe in Kiester will re-open soon as a new pizza parlor.
Bake it and they will come.
Brickhouse Pizza has been such a big success in Winnebago that owner Mike Baumann has decided to open another location.
This time he’s heading to the eastern part of the county — Main Street in Kiester.
Baumann recently purchased the Maple Cafe building, which has been vacant for three years.
“It’ll be completely gutted out. You won’t recognize it when you see it next time,” he says.
On Monday, Baumann and Paul Larson were beginning a remodeling project to transform the old restaurant into a pizza parlor.
For the two-man crew it was a week of several 10-hour days.
“We’ll have it ready to open sometime during the first week in November,” Baumann says.
The new Brickhouse pizza place will have a similar look to the one in Winnebago. It will have aseating capacity of 50.
Although Kiester is a town of less than 600 people, Baumann thinks there are enough residents in the surrounding area to support the business.
“This is another area that has never had pizza delivered to them,” Baumann says.
That was one of the reasons he decided to start a pizza business in Winnebago two months ago.
The response has been overwhelming at times.
Instead of having two telephone lines to take call-in orders, Baumann needed to add four more lines and hire people to answer them.
Customers have come from as far as Jackson, Buffalo Center and northern Iowa.
“If you give them a good product they’ll buy it. And, we make good pizza,” he says. “You don’t need a paper towel to get rid of the grease.”
Baumann also is busy trying to put together a crew for the new business, which will employ about 25.
Ads have been placed in local newspapers and the radio station to recruit help. Also, anyone interested in working at either location may fill out an application by logging onto:
“I’m just hoping to help the economy of rural Faribault County by adding some jobs,” Baumann says.
The new Brickhouse Pizza’s menu will be the same as Winnebago’s, offering 10- to 16-inch pizzas with 18 choices of toppings.
If you’re not in the mood for pizza, you’ll be able to buy hoagies and chicken wings, as well as bread sticks, garlic cheese bread, jalapeno poppers, mozzarella sticks, french fries and chicken gizzards.
In addition to dining in and carry-outs, Brickhouse does catering and will deliver to workplaces.
Because of the number of calls they are getting, Baumann says the Winnebago location has expanded its delivery area to a 15-mile radius and now includes the town of Easton.
The Kiester site will also have a 15-mile delivery limit that includes the towns of Alden, Bricelyn, Wells and Lake Mills, Iowa.
Both places are open Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., and Sunday through Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.