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Advice on having a Triple Stack Oven Setup

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Pupperoniking

New member
Hello all,

Been in the business for almost 20 years now. I have a new location that’s do amazing, to the point where I have a que of pizzas at dinner rush.I’ve gotten to the point where I take us offline for 30 mins to catch up or it’s going to snowball.

We already have a double stack setup and are looking at getting a third oven but I’m worried about handling the pizzas coming out. We had a really bad day during the first week where one mistake at the cut table led to a domino effect and I don’t ever want to repeat that ever again.

Anyone running a triple stack now? I’m sure a lot are. But my question more, was it a difficult adjustment for the people cutting during rush hour to go from a double stack to a triple ?

Thanks a lot any input would be appreciated.
 
One location we have a triple edge 3240. If we had to do it all over again id go with a wider oven double stack. There is less wasted space this without staggering pizzas and such. We had the same issue with holding off on putting items in but we reached that issue again even after adding another oven. It’ll cost you 30-35k for a wide belt of different varieties but totally worth it. Our other location replaced a lincoln impinger 32" with edge 3860s.thats a double stack setup and we feel we can put more through that way. Then you can continue to scale to another oven after that. If you’re with a 32 belt now and triple stack that, then still have a problem/problem happens 6 months later then you will still need to go wider and would’ve invested 15k or so more than you had to in the long run
 
Thanks for the reply. Very good points, especially staggering. I’m going to look at getting a bigger oven but the footprint of the store is very small, especially BOH. I’m not sure if I can have a bigger chamber oven, if so we’re opening another store soon( won’t be as busy) and I can use these current 32” at the new location.
 
In comparison to the lincoln 32s I think the 3860s were almost identical in footprint. Edge does a great job of maximizing the footprintm
 
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I’m not familiar with EDGE. I’ve used XLT, Lincoln and Middleby in the past. Unfortunately I’m with a franchise and we have to use either Lincoln or Middleby. I currently have all Lincoln 1600s in all my locations, expect one of our older locations where we have a Frankenstein double stack of a MM PS60 and Lincoln 1400. We primarily use the MM at that location as it has auto off sensor that quiets down and has a bit of gas savings. Plus I think it cooks a better pie, but that’s my opinion. Take a look at the pictures I’ve attached and you’ll see that I’m already pretty tight with the Lincoln 1600s 32inch. Dont mind the pixelated pics, I had to screenshot a video
image
 
If that’s the case I would look into wider lincoln’s and see what kind of footprint difference you have first but your only choice may to go triple with space constraints. You may be okay to add 6" to that area from what I can see. My set up is similar but I think I have another foot between oven and other left side and workstation
 
Agree with the advice to go wider if the space permits. We have a double stack 3860 and were not sure that it would keep up on Friday night. We have since learned we could not keep up and do not need a triple. Also, wow never seen the foot pedals for the sink before installed…especially during these times I think that is awesome. Might have to add that to the list for the new store! Love the floor too!
 
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I totally agree! They are from aero manufacturing out of Clifton,NJ. Made in the USA. I highly recommended, not the cheapest but the quality of the stainless is amazing. I can definitely tell from previously using made in China sinks and tables.
 
For us, running 3 ovens takes 2 people. We set it up where 1 person handles the paddle and the other sets up the boxes, cuts and puts the ticket on the order. The paddle person will put the pizza or other item in the box and clear the screens.
 
With the wide belts we are running 2 ppl as well. Paddle person also cuts and does some little things. 2nd person does hoagies and some other items. They are also responsible for grabbing any bags from the fryer station to complete the orders
 
We use a triple stack of the 3260’s and for us each oven has 2 lanes as our biggest pan is 16". We generally use 2 ovens/4 lanes to cook pizzas at 10 minutes and 1 oven/2 lanes cooking appetizers at 5 1/2 minutes on busy nights. Normally we only run 1 pizza oven and 1 oven for apps most of the time.

2 lanes of pizza and 2 lanes of apps is about all one person can handle when they are somewhat staggered, at least that’s true for my old self. If they are packed tight or any more lanes need to be added for cooking pizzas (like on a Friday dinner rush) that requires someone to focus on pizzas and another helper to just pull appetizers. If all 6 lanes are really packed full, a 3rd someone will need to be added to just label/organize boxes & bags.

An important key is to have a system in place where the food goes into the oven in a predictable manner such that the tickets/labels are organized on the cut end in the same order. If the next pizza out of the oven isn’t the next box in the stack or close to it, then that moment or two of hunting adds up quickly and things spiral out of control before long.
 
Thank you all for the input, invaluable I tell you! You are correct about putting the orders in the correct sequence as the bill. We didn’t do that at the beginning and one night it cost us big time. Had the oven full not an inch between the pizzas and one mistake the ppl at the cut table are flustered and cannot recover, “domino effect”. I tell them now I don’t care if it take a minute longer fill in the oven in the same sequence as the ticket. That alone saved us a lot of issues.
 
Our big issue is timed orders. Were better at it now that the timed orders show on our QSR screens with a time but we’re getting so many now in 15 minutes increments that 4-6 is a pain with the order of tickets. We try to move the timed tickets as much as we can with what’s going in ahead of it but there isn’t always time to do so. Sequential order will help a ton. If you have fryers, that’s what backs us up a lot too. We will get orders of all fryer stuff and and hoagies, a few in a row . Then pizzas will be ahead of that station by 3 orders, by the time I get a ticket with pizza and fryer, I’ll have the pizza but we’ll backed up 10 minutes or so on the fryer. Nothing we can do there but add more fryers, but we also have space constraints currently. Tired of doing remodels too
 
we limit our deferred orders on Fridays nights up to 4:00 and have 1 guy pulling and cutting and the other boxing and ticketing. I could not imagine having non-pizza items in there too (we have a separate grill line that I coordinate timing based on which line is running behind). Our KDS has been a huge help to make things more efficient.
 
Ive just disabled timed order on the web.

I have a popup message on the web that tells the customer to call the store for future timed orders.

Its helped big time, I only allow 2 timed orders per 30 minute time block.

I really feel like timed delivery shouldnt be a thing. I mean can you tell your Amazon driver exactly when you want them at your house with your package?
 
We got slammed again with the timed orders. We get at least 20-30 timed orders between 4pm-6pm (not surprising) our POS allows unlimited number of timed orders for any given time …SMH. Then on top of that live orders come streaming again. I have three really fast guys as well as me coordinating what goes in the oven. It works really well and we barely make any mistakes. I can’t get a bigger oven even if I wanted to, no footprint and head office advised me that the finger setup we use isn’t available with the bigger oven…sigh. I really don’t see anyway but to go with a triple stack and I really don’t know want to do that, but at this point I have no choice. I think if I did go with a triple stack id make one Oven just for timed orders. Do you think that would cut down mistakes at the cut table? I already installed a second cut table and I have 4 people working the cut table. We do a crazy amount of prep, presauce, sauce and pep pizzas and even getting to the point where we’re going to be making the most popular pizzas and have them ready to shove in the oven, but I really don’t see that speeding up the cue. Any input would be greatly appreciated.
 
I feel you on the timed orders. I don’t know our exact number but it felt like 20-30. 430-6 is the worst to get through. Anyway, I remember watching an episode of undercover boss (I think) maybe it was the profit, where they were in a franchise pizza place and they had 4 ovens (had to be custom I’d think) but these ovens were opposite of each. Ovens 1 & 3 went one way. Ovens 2&4 went the other. Tickets went to different places…I’m not sure if you have space to have one oven go another way with a separate cut table but it’s just a thought. I have no experience with this whatsoever, I just thought an outside the box idea may help.

I will say your guys will get used to a triple stack. Maybe look for an extension for the front of the oven if space permits. Domino’s had one where I went to college. It snapped on to the end of the conveyor and allowed the pizzas to slide further out of the oven, rather than backing up the oven. I’ll see if I can find a picture.
 
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Russell,
I have experience dealing with both double and triple stackable ovens with various through puts. Please give XLT a call anytime 316-943-2751.
 
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