Wife is demanding deck ovens, any suggestions

For example (as has been mentioned before), those operations who use the visibility of hand preparation and deck cooking process as ambiance or entertainment or similar reasons in their operations would find it less desireable to use conveyor ovens. One example, and it doesn’t mean all decks are better for all places, just that some decks are better for some places. It’s a question of generalizability of conclusions.
Nick Sasso
Nick’s Pizzeria, Grantville, GA

Great observation Nick I agree.
George Mills
 
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how about a survey on who uses decks and who uses conveyors???
i would like to know the percentages…
i do not know how to generate a survey,could some one do this please
 
As I mentioned some months ago I use a MM conveyor and my daughter’s partner (now ex) who has a deck oven in his shop prefers my pizzas.

Funny thing is I like his pizzas.

I’m not a fanatic on pizzas as I rarely eat them, but I must say that we do a bloody great pizza and our sales and customers tell the story. I don’t know if the sour dough we add to our dough batch is the reason but our crusts come out nice and firm and crispy and the base all so slightly chewy. We have a light and airy base. You can hear the crunch when cutting the baked (how’s that for correct terminology George?) pizzas, and that to me says we have a good coked / baked pizza.

Some customers who have tried our pizzas and have then come into the store for the first time ask where our wood fired oven is, not knowing we only have our single MM360.

We put our pizzas through on fine mesh dishes at 7 minutes at 254 Celsius.

As I am a fairly newcomer (15 months) to the industry I cannot say one way or the other but I know we do a great pizza and our customers tell us we are the best they have tried. (great for the ego :lol: )

Dave
 
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Now that I think about it, CPK is not a true ‘deck’ but they dont use wood in that oven. And they really do much more in food other than pizzas now. But they wouldnt be much of anything without the oven in the center of their facility as a showpiece, cant say that for a conveyer, unless you changed the name to California Pizza Factory.
 
Debate is fun!
Gust suggests.
California Pizza Kitchen

I would agree they could be considered a great medium size operation. And actually I do not know what ovens they are using.

I always have to make a point. There are close to 30,000 shops using, I believe, some type of air impingement ovens before we get down the list of major players and hit the California Pizza level with ?? “200 stores”. And a lot of the less than 200 shop groups are also using the impingement style ovens.

No question there many various styles and individual versions of pizza. If properly monitored and or adjusted. I think any oven can bake a great pizza. But it appears that the companies doing the major share of pizza sales by $$ billions are doing it with air impingement ovens.

Again ,I have seen some good advise in this forum that says “do not have a closed mind arrange to do a test bake”. That’s not always an easy thing to do. Almost no dealers have test ovens and it is often a considerable trip to visit a dealer who does or the factory.

Anyone who truly is in the market for ovens contact me and I will do my utmost to see that you get a demo of XLT ovens.They have been known to bring ovens to a serious buyers shop and do a demo with his product.
George Mills
 
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This is now about a year later since your post - what is your brother’s opinion of the Picard oven? We saw it in operation at the Pizza Expo in Vegas earlier this week but did not have any of our dough to try on it.
 
We are doing about 500k a year with a double stack bakerspride ony 8 pies at a time…we also use our oven for sanwiches…we can def do at least 10% more with what we have
 
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I’m not in a position to buy a new oven… but I’m very curious how my pizza would preform in other ovens. Do the big oven companies have mobile units that they drive around for operators to try? I’m right outside Louisville, Kentucky. Fairly centrally located, and I would think that that at some point over the next 6 months they would be driving by me. Anyone have some contact name and numbers?

-Scott
 
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GREAT PIZZA"S no doubt.
but here’s the rub, it takes experience and some common sense to run a deck oven, I bet if your wife gets a few burns under her belt (like mine) she would love the conveyours (we switched a year ago, NO ONE has noticed!
 
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REDBARNPIZZA:
GREAT PIZZA"S no doubt.
but here’s the rub, it takes experience and some common sense to run a deck oven, I bet if your wife gets a few burns under her belt (like mine) she would love the conveyours (we switched a year ago, NO ONE has noticed!
Click to expand...
Oh, the burns the first six months. No scars though - strange. I developed my “jets” and slowly I was flying those pies like saucers in flight.

You say people don’t notice. I wonder about that.

Deck ovens are a rough business, yes, but it is the style of pizza people crave. We had the rushes all the time; the conveyor stores did not. Nevermind the franchises - dead. I wonder how they survive now with the gourmet indy in this economy.

PD
 
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REDBARNPIZZA:
GREAT PIZZA"S no doubt.
(we switched a year ago, NO ONE has noticed!
Click to expand...
After I got rid of conveyors I realized some of our “old” customers seemed to slowly come back…when I asked them what happened they said they didn’t like the “dominos oven”…

just thought it might put into perspective
 
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I might be looking to sell. I’m in Redmond and have 3 deck ovens made by Bari. They are just like bakers pride. 1 double stack and 1 single. they are 3 years old and work great.
 
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Pazzo di Pizza:
All through this project I had in mind using deck ovens for our pizzeria, but output has me concerned. We grew up eating pizzas out of a Blodgett deck oven and love the crispy crunch bottom and chewy center.

We are developing a thin americana style pizza with topping edge to edge and want to stick with the deck oven idea. However if business takes off I am unsure we will be able to keep up. I am allowing space in the floor plan for up to 2 double stacks of ovens.

Anyone want to chime in or post links of good research info I can follow up on? The only thing I really know about deck ovens is we used Blodgetts.
Click to expand...
Listen 2 U’R Wife
 
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