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Opening in 3-4 weeks and still have no idea which oven tobuy

M

misteroman

New member
conveyor- CONS-more money up front, harder to fix/more problems,
less taste then decks.
PROS-Harder to burn if busy,easier for staff to use,consistency,
10-12 minutes up and ready

Deck oven-CONS-Takes an hour to warm up,Must pay more attention to
especially when busy.Harder for staff to learn/perfect.
PROS-Last forever w/ little upkeep.Much cheaper upfront and
only a couple of things can ever go wrong.Taste better.

----Still not 100% sure which oven(s) to buy.The guy there now has a Large Blodgett conveyor(11ft long) and 2 decks that only get used on weekends during busy times.He is taking them with him.I’m asking you nice people how do I make the final call on this.
Thanks a bunch
Derek
 
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Re: Opening in 3-4 weeks and still have no idea which oven t

Conveyor
Con- Cannot cook ONE pizza as well as a deck
Pro- Will cook ONE HUNDRED pizzas much better than a deck
 
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Re: Opening in 3-4 weeks and still have no idea which oven t

LOL made me laugh at 4 am.When would My little pizzeria ever need to cook 100 pizzas at one time?If I was that busy I’d prob sell and retire 😃
Derek
 
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Re: Opening in 3-4 weeks and still have no idea which oven t

I’m wondering when the time will come that I could start thinking of that. Probably 6 months after I’m burried 6 feet under I guess!
 
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Re: Opening in 3-4 weeks and still have no idea which oven t

Conveyor all the way. Lincoln puts out a great oven that has a nice cook to it. The old stand by, of course, would be your Middleby-Marshall. If you’ve got budget issues, there’s no law that says you’ve got to buy new. You can get a great refurbished doublestack from $7,000 - $15,000. Sure it won’t be brand new but it will be clean and it will cook pizzas properly.

Deck ovens: Nah, I’m cool.

-J_r0kk
 
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Re: Opening in 3-4 weeks and still have no idea which oven t

What about the flavor loss I keep hearing about w/ the CV ovens?
Derek
 
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Re: Opening in 3-4 weeks and still have no idea which oven t

quality-deck
quantity-conveyor
best of both- rotoflex
 
Re: Opening in 3-4 weeks and still have no idea which oven t

What are you selling? Are you selling a specialty pizza that commands premium pricing, or are you selling whatever comes out of the oven for whatever you can get for it?

If you want a $5 14" pizza, you can get as many as you want. If you are willing to pay $10 for the pizza, then you get to be more choosy about what you’re getting.

So, who is your intended audience? If you want to put out a Dominos-quality pizza, do it the way Dominos does it. If you want to put out a better product, you must be better.

There are two extremes. The first is buying pre-made/pre-cut everything and putting it on a conveyor. You are simply assembling the fastest thing possible. The other extreme is slicing every veggie and meat to order, making your own Italian Sausage, using fresh-made cheese, squeezing the tomato yourself. Obviously, most places are the “happy medium”, but that’s their own choice.

How do you determine your own “happy medium”? First and foremost, the amount you can get someone to pay for pizza has to be taken into account. If you’re opening in the center of a trailer park, $20 pizzas ain’t gonna fly.

The Ford Focus has its niche buyer and the Rolls Royce has its niche buyer.

The reality of it all is that you control what the customer receives. An ultra-cheap pizza will sell, and to a lesser degree, a true “work of art” pizza will sell. Ultra-cheap pizza will always outsell premium pizza, but you can charge a premium price for a premium pizza. Food cost from ultra-cheap to premium isn’t that much different, the LABOR is extremely different.

I’ll also dare to say that a Rotoflex is not the BEST pizza oven out there. It’s a REALLY good compromise though. You can’t run a Rotoflex at 800 degrees and you can’t put wood or coal in it. I’d say it’s almost as good as a deck oven (there’s less control as the design’s purpose is to eliminate “hot spots”). So, if one customer wants a really soft, chewy crust and another wants a crackery, crispy crust from the same dough, you’re going to have to manually “override” how it cooks by putting in screens and such. A Rotoflex won’t take the pizza out of the oven either, whereas a conveyor will. There’s significantly less “oven-tending” required with a Rotoflex over a traditional deck oven, but still more than a conveyor.

On the down side, the Rotoflex is a specialty oven, so you don’t find used ones very often and never find them dirt cheap.
 
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Re: Opening in 3-4 weeks and still have no idea which oven t

I think it was “Big Dave” who said, “A Deck oven cooks a GREAT PIZZA most of the time, a conveyor oven cooks a GOOD pizza EVERY time.”

Wish I could afford conveyors,
Russ Cox
 
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Re: Opening in 3-4 weeks and still have no idea which oven t
russ cox:
I think it was “Big Dave” who said, “A Deck oven cooks a GREAT PIZZA most of the time, a conveyor oven cooks a GOOD pizza EVERY time.”

Wish I could afford conveyors,
Russ Cox
Click to expand...
You’d settle for “good” over “great”?
 
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Re: Opening in 3-4 weeks and still have no idea which oven t

Yes I would give up my BP’s for a good conveyor any day. 2 years ago I would have said no, today I say YES. In the market I’m in, a consistant GOOD pizza is good enough. Seems real hard to run the decks above the 300k sales mark. I know there are people out there doing it everyday, however, I can’t train good people to run the BP’s consistantly.
 
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Re: Opening in 3-4 weeks and still have no idea which oven t

I prefer decks but the reason for my post is you better get them ordered. We just opened and after being promised our ovens would be delivered in 2 weeks we ended waiting over 4 weeks. It was down to the wire and very very stressful.
Order em now.

good luck
 
Re: Opening in 3-4 weeks and still have no idea which oven t

Snowman,
I guess I would be along the lines of happy medium.One of the reasons for wanting a conveyor,is that I work another job and will only be there about 1/2 the time it’s open.Also that 1hr warm-up time of the decks would be tough.
Looks Like conveyor it is.Now what do I do for a back up oven?A doubledeck one so if one is bad I still have the other one?A small tabletop one that can also double as my sub roll toaster?
My biggest fear,and this is why I buy new cars,Is waking up and being stranded.What happens when you go to turn on your oven Friday morning and nothing???
Derek
 
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Re: Opening in 3-4 weeks and still have no idea which oven t

get a double desk and a good maintainence contract
 
Re: Opening in 3-4 weeks and still have no idea which oven t

I think a deck is great if you want to turn out a more gourmet pizza at a higher price, and of course not sell as many of them. On the other hand I think that a conveyor can make almost as good of a pie if it is set up properly, and it can do it so much easier while being more consistient with a whole lot more volume. You wind up saving labor with the conveyor as well so what’s not to like?
 
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Re: Opening in 3-4 weeks and still have no idea which oven t

When I took over my shop 12 months ago I had never cooked a pizza commercially. The store was set up with a MM conveyor oven, running at 250 celsius for 7 minutes. This store was known for miles around as doing the best around and sill is. We up the temp to252 for a bit browner cooking finish.

As a greenhorn the coneyor was easy to use and always produce a pizza of high quality.

If I had my way to re-fit my store I would go with a conveyor again without hestitation. The main reasons are that the pizzas are consistent night in night out, no specialty training is needed for someone to work them, the makers put the pizza in the oven and whoever is on the end takes it out and boxes/cuts it. Labour wise I believe it would cut down one staff as you wouldn’t need to have anyone moving the pizzas around to the hot spots etc (I will stand corrected on this if it is not the case).

I have seen my daughters partner work his deck oven in his store and after seeing it I would go with the conveyor anyday. (He reckons my pizzas are better than his … but then again I really like his 😃 )
 
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