Outdoor Festival - planning to do slices - brainstorm

[NicksPizza]

I am looking at setting up booth at a festival; in the fall and selling slices. We would supply full 16" baked pizzas from our shop 10 minutes away, and store in a hot cabinet in boxes until served.

We have the potential to set up either 1) a deck oven with propane or 2) an electric 13" wide conveyor for refreshing slices.

Anything anyone would add to my knowledge base that would be helpful? We have not committed yet, but it was cool to be invited to be the one pizza place there in the food court . . . at the front entrance, too.

Location should be great. It is a spectacular opportunity to get our product into a nearby market . . . and make money on the marketing project! I am concerned about keeping the product quality up . . . serving hot slices when we may not be able to cook on site . . . We may be able to ‘crisp up’ or refresh them a bit on site if we need to consider that.

 

[What]

Nick,
I set up at 2 festivals a year, I use a baker pride deck oven, its the counter model about 20" x 20" 110v. You can find them used all the time (pretzel places use them). I wouldn’t spend the money on a small conveyor, to many moving parts when you are 10 minutes away from your shop. The electric ovens have two small elements, not alot of things go wrong with them. Oven goes up to about 600.When we are really busy we have the oven full with 6 or 8 slices before people even order. Before I was sure I could make money at the events I bought 6 toaster ovens to heat the slices up in.That worked also but the a]small pizza oven looks & works alot better.We sell between 100-300 18" pizza at $2.00 a slice tax included. Board of the health inspection easy because your aren’t cooking on site.I also do french fries (5 propane fryers), buffalo wings (cooked at shop, held in alto-sham warmer).Tryed just about everything else over the last 10 years but pizza & french fries are the best money makers. If you have any questions I’ll be happy to answer them. What(Bryan)

 

[George_Mills]

Hi nick:

This is not relevant to your project but perhaps an interesting tale for some.

When the 2nd Woodstock Festival was held 1994 we contracted to supply 25-30 large conveyor pizza ovens. The ovens were scattered all around the camp site.

My son Joe and one of our technicians drove a motor home to the site, met the delivery vehicles and installed the ovens. They stayed and maintained the ovens than removed them and shipped them back to our warehouse.

The ovens ran 24 hr and tons of pizza was sold.

The are to many hilarious tales of that venture to repeat here.

George Mills

 

[Kris]

Is your hot box electric? When we do pizzas at the football game they just order 25 at a time and sell em right out of the hot box.

You could also just use a couple heat lamps and set a couple pizzas out at a time.

I have never tried this but what about setting up a grill and heating them that way?

Kris

 

[NicksPizza]

We have a glorious Alto-Shaam heating cabinet that is 220V . . . that could be an issue for power. We also own a CTX conveyor oven . . . a cute little one mounted atop a prep cooler (that isn’t so cool since freon leaked).

I can easily get a grill, but then there is fuel and fire management and new skills to teach someone. It may very well be the way to go and get a good response with crisp crust pizza. That is my key goal . . . I want to regain the crisp crust after sitting in a cardboard box and a heating cabinet for an hour.