Hello all, I know there’s a lot of wisdom to be had in these forums so I’m looking for your advice!
Our pizza journey started with a very successful carryout pizza business. At times even on a random Tuesday we’d end up on a 2 hour wait due to such a high demand for our product that people were willing to wait for. About a month ago we had the opportunity to team up with a local brewery and have our first dine-in concept. Woo-hoo! Only problem is, now when we get a surge of high demand, people are pissed. It’s 90% Dine-In. So if people have to wait anything over 35 min for their food they’re not happy.
I am now forced to reevaluate my entire concept and figure out how to speed things up.
First topic…OVEN. We use a Blodgett 1060 double stack. I love the pizza it makes but it takes me 17 min to bake a fully topped large pizza. (we load up the toppings). I’ve tested my product in the EDGE ovens and it only takes about 7 min. But (to me) it’s not the same pizza. Mainly the crust, I can’t get that crispy/chewy/flavorful crust out a a conveyor. Do I need adjust my dough recipe?
(18 oz dough, cooked in a pan with olive oil. 60%Hyd, 2%Salt, 1%Yeast, 1%Sugar, 3 day fermentation if possible)
Second…MAKE LINE. We use scales (instead of cups) on the make line to ensure every the upmost consistency. But am I slowing things down way too much using this method?
I’ve sure there are many areas I’m missing it in, but these are the first couple that come to mind!
I appreciate anyone’s insight! I want to do better and ensure a good experience for the customer.
Thanks for the help!
i made that same switch from Blodgett to Edge. We had a 10min bake time and it went down to 7.5min. Since yours has a longer bake I would recommend adding at least another minute on your Edge cook time and lowering the heat and playing with your open/closed configuration. You will never get the exact 100% results of your deck but from my experience I would rather have a 90% product 100% of the time than 100% product 75% of the time due to the inherent inconsistency of decks due to their recovery under load and who works the oven and how attentive they are. We had a Rotoflex oven in between the switch for about 6yrs that served us well until we added delivery and it could not keep up.
We use a scale for the cheese. Ultra ship 55
Its so simple.
We basically free throw toppings… if I see something looking heavy I correct it. Bacon topping is the only topping I watch like a hawk
Except for sauce, and some finishes (fresh basil, cilantro, etc.) we weigh every topping every time. The more staff works at it consistently, the faster it goes. We speed up by pre-prepping skins for crunch time, pre-prepping sauce and cheese skins on some basic recipes for heavy-hit time weekend nights, etc. We’re still working on oven bake time issues ourselves but have added TurboChef Double Batches to mimic Lincoln Impingers. Dropped average bake time by 55-60%. We also moved other items out of pizza ovens (wings, knots, pasta) and into other fast-bake ovens to not clog them up. And of course (you’re likely already doing this) we prioritize dine-in for wait times, having some faster ovens makes this even easier.
It absolutely helps with consistency, and that too is important for us. But it’s equally helpful with food cost issues. One ounce of cheese over, on average, for every pie, at 100,000 pies a year will break your budget.