Hi. We are opening a new pizza restaurant. I have experience with the 60 qt Hobart. Does anyone know anything about the 60 qt Berkels? The cost savings are significant. Is this going to be a good mixer for use with pizza dough? Anyone??
Hi Drewdog;
My clients will take a properly reconditioned Hobart over a Berkel every time.
The word I am getting is that the latest new style Hobarts are not as good as the older ones.
Just what our clients tell us, others may think differently.
George Mills
Imo, a berkel is fine to save money if its going to be a piece of equipment for light use. Obviously this is not the case for a pizza shop.
We have not purchased a new Hobart mixer in quite a few years in our stores but we have purchased many other Hobart products which have paled in comparison to years past. The repairman that work on our equipment echo the same sediments that Hobart is not what it used to be.
Precision may be an option. We have one of them in one of our low volume stores and we have never had an issue with it. Maintenance is cheap as they use commonly available parts that can be easily sourced – rather than rely on proprietary parts that are more expensive and harder to source.
I generally do not like dealing with used equipment but its hard to go wrong with an old used Hobart mixer.
I just replaced my Hobart planetary mixer with an Empire spiral mixer. So far I like the dough, not sure if it’s better, but certainly no worse. My guess is the Empire mixer will need less maintenance and will last as long if not longer than a Hobart. I would strongly suggest looking into the spiral mixers as they can be purchased new for similar cost as a refurbished Hobart and are made to withstand the day to day stress that pizza dough will put a mixer through. The drawback for some of you is that you can’t add a shredder attachment like you can with many Hobarts.