Kauai’s family-owned Brick Oven Pizza restaurant, a Garden Isle favorite established in 1977, is coming to Oahu. It is projected to open in December at Crossroads at Kapolei, anchored by the Simply Organized retail store and Chun Wah Kam restaurant.

Brick Oven’s owners would love to open sooner, if possible.

Well known for its loaded pizzas with crispy, hearth-baked, garlic-butter-brushed pizza crusts made from white or wheat flour, Brick Oven Pizza’s Kalaheo and Kapaa locations have been reviewed by long-established dining and travel publications and, in more recent years, online sites including Yelp.com and Trip Advisor.com, as well as on countless blogs. Brick Oven’s pizzas have been both praised and panned by proclaimers of East Coast pizza pie pre-eminence, but they have long been favored by local residents. Among the nonfood reasons: Servers will bring pizza dough balls to the table to help keep fidgety young diners occupied whilst awaiting their meals.

The restaurant is not part of a chain, though there are several pizza joints by the same name sprinkled around the mainland.

“It’s not a franchise,” said Corey Aguano, president. Aguano and wife Tisha, Dustin and Kimberly Gummerus, and Meagan Nelmeda bought the restaurant from the Demas family, the original owners, in 2008. None had been employees of the restaurant. “We grew up together and lived nearby,” Aguano said. The families bought the restaurants knowing they wanted to expand the concept to Oahu, and while they hope to expand further, they will first see how the Kapolei location works out. “But we’re always looking to expand,” Aguano added. They have no plans to franchise, nor have they any interest in the prospect. The Demas family members were sticklers for quality, “and that’s the promise we made to them,” to maintain the quality “no matter how much we expand,” said Aguano.

The Oahu restaurant will be about 3,050 square feet and employ between 30 and 40 people.

The new store is smaller than its big sisters on Kauai, which measure 5,500 square feet in Kalaheo and about 6,000 in Kapaa. Each has a staff of about 40.

The new Brick Oven Pizza’s seating capacity tentatively will be about 130, including about 100 inside and the rest outdoors. The owners plan a full bar, as in their Kapaa location and as is in the works for its Kalaheo store.

“We’re not going to be a sports bar,” Aguano said. Rather, the Kapolei Brick Oven Pizza will maintain the family-oriented atmosphere of its Kauai venues, which are open for lunch and dinner.

Crossroads at Kapolei will welcome the additional nighttime traffic, said Carol Ai May. Her family and the owners of Chun Wah Kam own the center, whose first tenant was the Hawaii Law Enforcement Federal Credit Union.

“We want to have really exciting restaurants and retailers,” she said. Three more spaces are available, “and we would love to have a florist,” as there are none in Kapolei. “It’s a fabulous opportunity,” and a nail salon also would be a good fit, she said.

The center is at the intersection of Kamokila Boulevard and Wakea Street, to which access will be expedited with the opening of the H-1 interchange at Wakea Street. That event is planned for late next month or in early October, said Dan Meisenzahl, chief of communications for the state Department of Transportation.

Chun Wah Kam, meanwhile, will soon open a new location of its Chinese restaurants at Pensacola and Waimanu streets, between Ward Centers and Ala Moana Center.

Reach Erika Engle at erika@staradvertiser.com.