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Who has ever heard of a pizza cooked on the grill? People living in Norcross, Georgia, a suburb in the north part of Atlanta, have not only heard of it, it's the way they prefer it. CK's Grilled Pizza has been cooking, or should I say grilling, pizzas there for the last six years. They are not only winning new customers, they are winning pizza competitions all across the United States with their gourmet recipes created by Chef Craig Priebe.

Running their operations out a 3,800 square feet restaurant, the husband and wife team of Karla and Craig Preibe have seen their operation grow from a small 800 square feet pizzeria to the blossoming business it is today. "It was so tight in there," Craig says. "It is a true miracle we have stayed married. We have worked together for seven years, starting the pizzeria just two months after we were married. Talk about a true test of a relationship, but we love each other even more because of the adversities we have faced together."

According to Craig, making a grilled pizza takes some practice. "The dough is rolled out very thin," he says. "Then we put the raw dough on a pizza screen and brush it on one side with olive oil. Then, we flip the oiled side down on the grill, removing the screen. When the crust is crispy and golden on that side, we turn it over, put the fixin's on and slide it back on the grill to grill to perfection."

Grilled pizza dough is a special dough containing a higher amount of yeast than other doughs. This allows for a rapid rise when the dough hits the higher temperature of the grill surface. The dough forms layers of thin pockets of air making the crusts flaky and tender. CK's also uses unbleached, high-gluten flour, which attributes to a crispier crust. CK's uses three grills that give them 15 feet of grilling area and can have 12 to 15 twelve-inch pizzas cooking at once when all of the grills are fired up.

He says the costs of fuel are more expensive than if he used gas for the grills. The natural wood costs about $9 for a 20-pound bag and they use four to eight bags each day. "The costs are built into your food costs, not your fixed costs like other energy sources might be," he explains. "But, we get superior results from real wood. The results are better flavor, crispier crusts, unique appeal, lower lows on temperatures and higher highs for flexible grilling techniques, real smoke and smooth burning coals."

 CK's Grilled Pizza is located at 3375 Holcomb Bridge Road in Norcross, Georgia. They are at the corner of a major intersection and two very busy roads and are the anchor tenant of a small strip mall. They are surrounded by technology business parks, apartments and upscale neighborhoods. Craig says there is very little foot traffic and lots of transient traffic, which he explains as a lot of people speeding by on their way to somewhere else. They just moved into the new, expanded location about a year ago and can now seat about 130 at once. Craig and Karla say their lunch and dinner crowds are about a 50/50 split Monday through Thursday. They are open six days a week and closed on Sundays.

Craig says his food costs are about 23 to 28 percent, depending on business. "Our average check is about $12," he says. "Our pizzas cost more than any of our competitors, but you really get your money's worth in the top quality ingredients, superior crusts and fantastic flavor of our upscale combinations." Prices for pizza range from $5 to $25.

They have over 15 original combinations and use combinations of ingredients that range from caviar to goat cheese. The best-selling item is their International Best Pizza prize winning ‘Gamberian Pizza,' which includes jumbo shrimp sautéed in extra virgin olive oil, sun-dried tomatoes basil-pecan pesto, garlic and onions.

They do have a convection oven they use to make appetizers and their popular Bread Bowls. Bread Bowls are loaves of bread in which they serve ‘Pizza Bowl Salads' in and are popular with lunch crowds. One of the most popular appetizers is ‘Garlic Knots with cheese' made of garlic bread rolls they bake with cheese added to the top.

"The Val-pac coupon mailer was a good value and it really brought in a lot of people," Craig says. "The Clipper mailer is a coupon magazine mailer and it worked well, too. We don't like to offer too many discounts coupons of this sort because we do not want to devalue our exceptional product. The cheaper fast-food style products love discounting their products and I believe too much of that approach can lead people to think your products are not worthy of full price.

"Our pizza is made entirely of upscale products and cooked in an upscale way, so we like people to get the message that it is worth every cent they are going to pay for it. Discounts do work in business slumps, like over hot summer months."

"Entering the International Pizza Competition was a good move," he says. "We won top honors in 1998. That was the best thing we have ever done to promote our business. After winning the International Best Pizza of the Year, we were on all the major news shows, in US News and World Report, all over the Atlanta Journal newspaper, in Atlanta Magazine and others. We entered the contest again and won first place category awards the following two years. A lot of free publicity can be had for free, when you have the best pizza in the world."

Awards CK's Grilled Pizza has won are:

• 1997- Best Restaurant in Gwinnett County; Best Pizza, Best Calzone, Best New Food Trend
• 1998- Best Pizza Internationally; Pizza Today's Hot 100 in Nation Independent Pizzeria list
• 1999- Best Seafood Pizza Internationally; Top 50 Restaurants in Atlanta
• 2000- Top 50 Restaurants in Atlanta; Top 15 Places to Eat
• 2001- Best Exotic Pizza Internationally; Top 50 Restaurants in Atlanta
• American Culinary Federation- Bronze Medal; Chef Craig

Craig said the worst promotion they have done cost them $1,000. "We bought advertising on the back of Eckard Drugstore's register tape," he says. "Only one guy came in, once. After he used his coupon, we never saw him again. We were totally targeting the wrong market with that promotion."

Craig offers some tips for those wanting to experiment with this tasty alternative. "Practice grilling pizzas in your backyard first," he says. "You don't put a pizza in one side and wait for it to come out the other like a belt oven. It's more labor intensive, but the results are really superior to anything. Training and supervision are key roles in successful pizza grilling and consistency can be a problem if these are not part of your everyday operations.

"Grilling pizza really gets a lot of attention and respect from all of our guests. It grabs their natural curiosity and people can't wait to see the pizzas grilling and taste the difference wood grilling makes. We get amazing reactions from all sorts of people before they eat our pizza and especially after they taste it. They get addicted to the one-and-only taste."

"We have discovered our pizza has an excellent quality for being able to stand up to being frozen and stored for over six months, then cooked in an oven to bubbling crisp perfection," Craig adds.

The crusts are fully grilled, then topped with sauce, cheese and toppings. The pizza is then shrink wrapped, to protect it from air, then placed in a freezer at minus 10 degrees. Craig says the frozen pizza can be placed in a 400-degree oven, baked for 15 minutes, and will result in a pizza that is extremely close to a freshly grilled pizza.

"It is the best frozen pizza you will ever eat," he claims. "We sell them at our store. We have our own UPC number and we are able to sell them on the retail market. We have found that getting a frozen pizza on the shelves of major grocery stores is very difficult and we have not had success with that yet. We do sell them at a privately-owned natural foods store, because the pizza is all natural with no preservatives or additives."