New Pizza Stand at Farmer's Market

[norma427]

I just started my pizza stand at our local farmer’s market yesterday. Thank you for all your contributions in helping me learn the whole process of having a pizza business. I was wondering if anyone can help me come up with a great dough forumlation. I used different combinactions on trying my dough. My local pizza man helped me with making my pizza sauce and directed me to supplier for my ingredients. I have ordered cultures from sourdo and am going to make a proofer. I have purchased all the things I need for that, but haven’t made it yet. Since my pizza market stand is only open one day a week, I will now work on my dough. My mother and I made our dough on Monday and it kinda out sticky, but we added bench flour when forming the dough. The customers were receptive to our pizza and we didn’t have any complaints. We were busy all day making pizza, but then we aren’t experienced at all, so we need to learn to be more organized and learn more about opening dough. We opened it as far as we could and then use the screen to open it the rest of the way. Hopefully we will learn what it takes to open up the dough without tearing it. I am willing to learn anything about pizza making and will keep looking at think tank for advice. I have posted a blog if anyone cares to read it. Thanks to this great site in helping me start a pizza stand! If anyone is interested in looking at my pictures of my first pizzas, let me know how I can post them with my posts.[/code]

 

[pizzafanatic]

Norma, congrats on getting your stand open. Sounds interesting.

I’m not trying to sound condescending here, but don’t you think you should have had your dough formulation done before you opened? Don’t gauge your customer’s satisfaction on the fact that you didn’t get any complaints. You’ll soon see many of the same faces week after week coming to the market. If they liked your pizza, they’ll buy again. But if they didn’t, they won’t and they’ll probably never tell you they disliked it.

I would hustle to get your dough recipe in place. There are many recipes on this site to get you started. IMO, you don’t want to use your customers as guinea pigs. Use your family and friends (although they may give you biased feedback).

Not sure why you would have ordered sourdough cultures (unless that’s flavor your after). A proofer is nice, but not essential in most cases.

Good luck.

 

[norma427]

Hi pizzafanatic,
I know it sounds weird about what I did. I bought my oven on ebay and had so many problems with getting it and having it fixed it took 2 months just to get that done. I was studying recipes, but never used the used the hobart mixer I had bought. I had a sign up for 3 months that I was going to have pizza. I had started the pizza stand in January. When I got the oven fixed, I decided I was just going to start. I know that might not have been a good decision. There are about 400 standholders overall inside and outside at the market and them and customers kept asking me to make the pizza. Many people said it was the greatest pizza they had ever tried. LOL I don’t think they get around too much. I have been to New York many times because my daughter lives there and have tried many pizzas. From reading this site and going on pizzamaking.com, I think I have found a workable dough to try this week. I had a back-up of frozen dough balls from a distributor to use if I thought my pizza wasn’t good. I used both that and the standholders told me they liked my dough better. I am looking to really make a great pizza. I will keep trying recipes until I find the right one. That could take years. I am interested to know what you think about sourdough pizza. I mean what is the difference in the taste? I have been in the market business for over 30 years. I have made all kinds of things. My husband and I had a Caramel Corn and Kettecorn business that did very well. We made it the old-fashioned way in a copper kettle by hand. He became ill two and half years ago and I had to sell that business, because it was too much for me to handle. We had stand at different markets. I have also owned a funnel cake, hand dipped ice cream, and Mexican Food Stand. I sold that stand because it was outside and I had to have it closed in the winter. Then I had a Fresh Salsa stand, but people here in the east around here are more conservative and aren’t really into salsa. I had researched the fresh salsas for over a year before I started that stand and made them all fresh. Thank you for helping me. I will have many questions about making pizza. Could you tell me how to post a picture from here, so you could see what my pizzas looked? :?

 

[George_Mills]

Hi Norma:

Your statement: I bought my oven on ebay and had so many problems with getting it and having it fixed it took 2 months just to get that done.

You illustrate a common situation. More often than not making a blind equipment purchase brings many problems. We get many calls from operators who purchased ovens from E Bay, Craigs List, or someone who claimed to be selling reconditioned ovens. These buyers find themselves with equipment that is often missing parts, may not work properly or it works only because the safety features have all been bypassed with jumper wires. There is little they can do except to spend perhaps hundreds even thousands of dollars to have a competent technician make the repairs and updates that should have been done before the unit was sold.

To properly rebuild say a conveyor oven is a costly project. Many of the ovens offered have only been wiped down with a damp rag and jury rigged to work.

Use caution, know who you are buying from.

George Mills

 

[norma427]

Hi George,
Yes, thanks for the information. My oven is finally working after about 600.00 in repairs. New valve, new thermostat, new pilot light, conversion from natural gas to propane. Since I am new to making pizza all the factors in making pizza are very interesting to me. Since my farmer’s market stand is only open one day a week, I couldn’t afford to buy new equipment. I am trying to learn everything I need to know to be a great pizza maker. I know this will take time, but I have the time.