Ok, I am giving this photobucket thing a shot…I hope I do this right! Here is a pic of the sign being installed, and one more of my Wow 670’s being installed! I hope to be FINALLY open by the first week on next year! I will post more when something big happens!
All I can do is Drool, drooll, drool … 
How big is your shop? It’s more like a small supermarket 
Can’t wait to see more photo’s just like you can’t wait to get open.
Wishing you the best of trade when you open.
Dave
that looks one cool oven. I’m really interested in the energy saving element of the wow oven. I always hate it mid afternoon if we have a quiet hour - just thinking about the energy we waste with the oven on but nothing in it.
The only thing that really puts me off with MM is that they are pig’s to clean compared with the XLT. I hope this one is better! (although I doubt it!)
George - with my XLT (and MM) have you ever come across any energy comparisons about turning it off for say half and hour when its quiet versus just leaving it on (i.e. is it less energy to keep it at temp rather than letting it cool and then putting it back on). I’ve always wondered why no-onehaven’t brought a switch/button that if you pushed would put it into a ‘standby’ state when it goes a bit quieter. With energy costs as they are I bet they sell a stack of them!
That’s what I was thinking too. How many sq ft? How many seats?
Wow nice place! That high-tech oven looks like it could run the biz by itself!
Hi Wizzle.
Cutting back temperatures for a short period of time does not appear practical. It is easier in my opinion to maintain temperature rather than try to reheat.
Many years ago we had a gadget for sale that employed a electric eye sending devise that shut down ovens and started them up on demand. It did not save enough to make it worth installing. Perhaps the wow gadget does better but I have seen no hard evidence,.
Naturally if an operator is replacing an older oven there will be savings but that will be more as a result of the latest model gas burners and gas valves saving 20 to 30 % even before the wow option.
As no wow ovens that I have heard of have replaced modern ovens with the newest burners and valves I have no way to determine if the wow option accomplishes enough to warrant the additional cost or additional exposure to service.
Some operators who have installed wow ovens may think it is the wow option that is saving them some operating cost when it is mostly due to the new burners and valves.
Just my observations, if someone knows otherwise I would like to hear their views.
George Mills
quote=“Wizzle Wassell”]
The only thing that really puts me off with MM is that they are pig’s to clean compared with the XLT. I hope this one (WOW OVEN) is better! (although I doubt it!)
Hi Wizzle: Your doubts are correct the wow Model 670 is the same pig to clean as the PS 570.
There are, it appears, also the same requirements to lubricate the power train to the blowers with a grease gun on a regular bases. The two blowers are still, it appears, belt driven. There are several cooling fans that need their filters cleaned quite often.
The 640 appears to be some improvement in the basic design but it looks like the unit still requires substantial disassembly to clean
The warranty is only one year where as most all the new ovens on the market give a two year warranty.
George Mills
Monkey Business EATertainment is right about 11,300 square feet, and seats right at 400. I just hope I can fill it at least twice a week, once on Saturday for birthday parties, and hopefully again for a breakfast buffet on Sunday morning. Only time will tell!!! This week is really going crazy…Signs are installed, toilets are installed, carpet just got finished, Wow’s are in, Griddle, open fryers, pressure fryer, pizza make table, sand/salad table, line freezer, chargrill, pressure smoker, Taylor soft serve, Taylor slushie, ice machine, counters!!! Thursday I am renting a huge 26’ Penske lift gate truck to run up to Phoenix and pick up all my arcade games! That should be really fun, I have never driven anything that big before! Can anyone say “CONVOY!!!” I look nothing like Burt Reynolds thought, oh well it will still be fun!!! I will post more pics this weekend after the kitchen is done, and the arcade games are in. I think my tables and booths come tomorrow or Friday as well! Thanks all for your years of help on this project, and I am going to be hanging here for a long time to hopefully pay it forward to anyone I can!
Did George W give you a multi billion payout to set up? :lol:
By your descriptions of equipment etc and size of the place the start up costs must be huge.
But then again the returns would be better than investing with the banks or the stock exchange in the recent past where they lost everyone billions, so even if you break even you will bet better off than investing your money.
Good luck with the “monkey business” … sounds like what the financial institutions should have called themselves. 
Dave
Great luck to you with the venture. IT sounds like it has a lot of pinache!
(PS I think you are looking for Chris Christofferson in "Convoy!)
Good luck on the new place. It looks great so far.
I work at Papa Johns as a driver. We have the new WOW ovens and yours look identical to ours. (Except yours are clean!) Ours are pretty reliable. Our top oven which gets 90% of the use has only failed once in the year or two that we’ve had them.
We had a few problems when our ovens were new. There was a screw loose on the cover to the drive system for the conveyor, and a safety interlock would disengage and shut down the oven with no notice for what seemed no apparent reason. Since it never failed when the technician was there to fix it, it went on for a few weeks before I noticed the interlock when I bumped it while sweeping the floor. (I am a retired avionics and electronics technician, so I immediately realized what just happened and told the GM and tightened the screw.) Our old conveyors were chain driven and the chain would come off several times a year. The new conveyors are belt driven (I think) and have not failed so far.
Ours are set to cook in just four and a half minutes, but the consistency from pie to pie is worse (in my opinion) than with the older ovens even with the computer controlled temps. Maybe we are not loading correctly? We are told to keep pies two inches apart. Maybe a slower cook time will produce better results for you? I dunno about that, I’m just a driver.
Oh, someone mentioned cleaning. The outsides are very easy to clean. The filters on the tiny muffin fans on the controls side of the oven get dirty very quickly with dustinator. We (try to) clean ours once a week. We don’t touch the inside of the oven. It gets cleaned about once a year by some team that only does that job. They do it overnight. Oven trays at the ends of the conveyor are cleaned daily of course.
Our oven has the capability to be hooked up to our POS system via an included computer cable, but it is not connected. I was told that this can be used to preheat the oven as soon as an order is taken in the computer, as opposed to waiting for the optical sensor to sense that a pie has been placed on the conveyor. The warm up to full heat can be excruciatingly long when you have a small rush after a half our or more of dead time. If you remember, you can swipe your hand across the optical sensor when you walk over to the make line to start the heat on full while you are still making the pies.
Again, best of luck!
Gregster what a great post…Thank you for your contribution to think tank…
Thank you. Even ‘evil incarnate’ :twisted: has a ‘good side’. 
Hi Gregster
you state
We have the new WOW ovens. Ours are set to cook in just four and a half minutes, but the consistency from pie to pie is worse (in my opinion) than with the older ovens even with the computer controlled temps.
Hi Gregster you are not the first to make that observation. I wonder if the shutting down and heating back up does not happen fast enough causing some pizzas to bake less than others?
George Mills
You also state.
Oh, someone mentioned cleaning. The outsides are very easy to clean. The filters on the tiny muffin fans on the controls side of the oven gets dirty very quickly with dust in the air. We (try to) clean ours once a week. We don’t touch the inside of the oven. It gets cleaned about once a year by some team that only does that job. They do it overnight.
No doubt it takes that long to clean those ovens. They require substantial disassembly in order to clean.
If your ovens are only cleaned once a year you shop is baking pizzas in a garbage can. I sold hundreds of MM ovens and quite often would get a call from an operator saying "My pizzas have a strange taste or a bad odor. When I, or a service man, checked, the oven had not been cleaned for two tor three months and a pile of food droppings had accumulated in the bottom of the oven. That accumulation of all products and toppings that had fallen off pizzas was rotting like any garbage and having an effect on the taste or odor of the pizzas being baked.
Don’t bake your pizzas in a garbage can, clean your ovens very often. Fortunately the newer design ovens can be cleaned of any food droppings in a matter of minutes. Cleaning the droppings every two weeks for a busy shop is not excessive.
George Mills
I’ll let the expert’s debate as to why the pies are cooking inconsistently. I just know that there seems to be no (apparent) rhyme or reason that I can see when I am taking them out of the oven and cutting and boxing them.
As to the cleaning issue, I cannot easily comment further on specifics of cleaning at my particular store. I do know that after cleaning kitchens in the Navy, that my idea of ‘clean’ is worlds away from what I see in day to day operations. Reporting cleanliness issues to managers results in one of two outcomes: The one reporting the issue has to clean it, or the issue is ignored. Not a very effective whistle blower program. I used to regularly point out that our oven cleaning schedule (posted on the wall where customers could see it) was WAAAAAAAAAY past due. (I knew I would not be told to clean it myself) Solution? No more poster on the wall! :roll: I personally could not run a store this way.
I used to care a lot about the place I worked and I have always had a great work ethic in that I do what I know I should do without waiting to be told. I did everything in my power as a driver to ensure that customers were happy and the store was successful. I corrected and or pointed out potential problems before they became issues. I am certainly not looking to sabotage or undermine my employer. A food borne illness or failed heath inspection is detrimental to us both. I do what I can to keep my job. It later became obvious that I was far more committed to my place of employment than they were to their employees. I do still work there, and I have taken steps to improve things. They are ongoing. That’s a whole other issue!
Now may be a good time to ask your employees if they know of any cleanliness or maintenance issues you may have overlooked or forgotten. We tend to ignore the little things we see hundreds of times a day. Stand where your customers do and look at your store. What will they see? Peeling paper or fresh paint? Stand at the far end of the parking lot, or across the street. Stand there a few minutes. If someone new to the neighborhood saw your store, would it look like a place you wanted to try? Are all the lights working? Stripes in the parking lot visible? Just fresh yellow curbs and stripes can draw more attention to your place.(If you control that) Cant paint the whole outside right now? How about some nice glossy new trim paint around the windows and doors? Trash in the ditch? Maybe a fence would hide it if you can’t keep it clean. Can the customers see your dumpster area? Can they smell it? Maybe it’s time to ask that your dumpster is replaced with a freshly painted one. Make a schedule to check these things quarterly or whatever interval you deem appropriate. Make reporting ‘issues’ painless or even beneficial to employees. Don’t just fix the overlooked item, it may just get overlooked again. Fix the ‘process’ that allowed it to be overlooked in the first place.
Just from those two pics above I can tell that Monkey Business is a place I would be eager to try at least once knowing nothing more than what I can see. Would pics of your place say the same thing to your newest customer? Looks likely make new customers walk in the door (or never come in in the first place!). The food should keep 'em coming back.
But hey, I’m just a pizza driver. Whatta I know? 
PS, PIZZAMAGOO, have you thought about doing a ‘news release’ or two to generate interest and free advertising for your new place? Maybe have employees do some community service together in the name of the business and do a release on that? Get the painters, carpenters etc to wear Santa hats while working and snap a few pics. Newspapers would likely LOVE to have someone write a few puff pieces for free in these economic times.
What other little ideas can you all come up with to make your place look new(er) again and run smoother?
The questions posed here are ones that every owner MUST address. I have an ongoing battle with the landlord over several of these. The lines have been painted once in 4 years and the bricks on the front of the building are falling off in spots. The excuse that I get is there is not enough time to do all that I am asking. Other tenants here are planning to withhold the January lease payment.
Now I thought of Cledus Snow played by Jerry Reed in Smokey in the Bandit. “We got us a convoy !!”
Man, I am loving gregster’s contributions! I knew you had it in you as your posts were never ad hominem attacks.
Thanks for helping The Think Tank.
Hey Gregster, thanks for the great posts!! We have been working with our local paper ever since our first contractor ran off with our money!!! They are doing a front page spread on us, our business, and the economy we are opening up in, it should be an interesting read! I really appreciate you thinking of ways to help me out with my new place! Thanks everyone, and I will post more photos on Saturday!
Wizzle,
We are currently preparing to release a patened design similar to the simple push button energy savings you asked about. Our design will take our high effciency EDGE series of conveyor ovens that all ready have an operating cost as low as 65 cents per hour (gas and electric) and send them to the next level in energy savings. Keep your ears open and your eyes peeled…It’s coming soon…very soon 