One pizza maker shop volume?

[pcampbell]

Most of the shops I am familiar with here in NJ are 1 pizza maker, double gas deck oven shops and this is also the sort of setup I'd be looking at.

Does a reasonable assessment sound like roughly 40 large pizzas per hour (I am going not by oven capacity here, but on 1.5 minutes to prepare each pizza to go in the oven)?  Then a good Friday night might be 120 pies with 3 very busy hours?

[RoadPizza]

Most of the shops I am familiar with here in NJ are 1 pizza maker, double gas deck oven shops and this is also the sort of setup I'd be looking at.

Does a reasonable assessment sound like roughly 40 large pizzas per hour (I am going not by oven capacity here, but on 1.5 minutes to prepare each pizza to go in the oven)?  Then a good Friday night might be 120 pies with 3 very busy hours?

It's doable if your pizza maker is very fast.  The fastest I've seen to prepare a pie for the oven is 30 seconds but 1.5 minutes is still fast.  The toppings, sauces, and dough trays should be refilled very quickly by a pizza server/assistant who would also help with watching over the oven while the pizzas cook to maintain that pace for 3 hours.

A normal gas deck can accommodate 4 to 6 whole pies, so a double deck would hold/cook 8 to 10 pies.  A pie cooks from 8 to 10 minutes (depending on the heat of the oven and the bricks).

[pcampbell]

OK.. so 40 may be pushing it?  Is 30 more realistic assuming the oven can keep up with the maker.

I've also seen the "Domino's" 30 second pizzas but I am not talking about Domino's!

[RoadPizza]

OK.. so 40 may be pushing it?  Is 30 more realistic assuming the oven can keep up with the maker.

I've also seen the "Domino's" 30 second pizzas but I am not talking about Domino's!

When I was younger and working at a Times Square store, I remember filling out a whole shelf with cooked whole cheese pizzas.  We'd start reheating them on the bottom deck as soon as the lunch rush would begin.  We'd use the top deck to make new pies and we'd still have a hard time keeping pace with the demand.

[UnConundrum]

Is this a true "one" man shop, no one else there to help?  Is he getting his own supplies?  Taking pies out of the oven, boxing and cutting them?  Is he cashing out customers?

Don't forget that at that speed the oven may have problems keeping up with the heat loss.  Each pie lowers the temperature of the clay surface and you're not providing any recovery time. 

[pcampbell]

Sorry - to clarify - just one pizza maker but with help for phones, register, etc.

I hope to slow down the effect of losing heat during high turnover periods by using a much thicker deck and high heat output oven.  It would take longer to heat up of course.

[GotRocks]

Dominos 30 second pizza? They use pre-cooked sausage so I can understand that, but fresh is gonna slow you down considerably.


Do you plan on pinching off fresh sausage on your pizza, or using the pre-cooked stuff?
For fresh, and on a 14'-16" pie, I see 2-2.5 minutes as a more realistic time using fresh meat because it is not just a weigh & toss situation.

[tdeane]

I couldn't make 30 an hour but I'm not making just cheese pizzas.

[pcampbell]

Thanks.

What I am looking at is a very simple menu with about 10 toppings.  For sausage I am probably looking at a pre-cooked organic sausage.  Vegetables will be fresh.

About the 30 second domino's, I'm talking about the stuff you see on youtube.... I won't have the "Auto cheeser"  and I won't have the skins pre stretched.

I am working backwards here, and trying to figure, for example if I need to do 1000 pizzas a month, and if 70% (a made up number, but trying to be conservative towards being less busy during the week) of sales are on Fri/Sat that's 700 in 8 days a month, or 88 each Fri/Sat. 

[RoadPizza]

How fast can you make one of your pies?

Will you be cooking directly on the brick, or will you be using pizza screens?  If you're cooking directly on the brick, would you be able to transfer a pizza into the back row of the oven while a pizza is cooking in front of it?

[norma427]

Patrick,

I am older, but making 9 pizzas an hour is a lot for me.  Since I sell more slices than whole pies, someone needs to wait on each person, wash each pizza pan and other items, put toppings on pies, ring up sales, give change, get sodas, cut the pizzas and put each pizza on a paper plate or whole pies in a box.  If I run out of others items that are made with the dough, then I also have to make those items.  I usually have two other people working with me in the busy times.  One other person and I can do it, but you are very busy and can't hardly keep up. At the market stand if there are multiple people to wait on, I have to stop opening dough and wait on them.  I put the sauce on the pies and another person puts on the toppings and slides the pie into the oven.  Either of us takes the pies out. 
I know this might not be your situation, but much work can go into making many pizzas with only two people.

Norma

[RoadPizza]

Thanks.

What I am looking at is a very simple menu with about 10 toppings.  For sausage I am probably looking at a pre-cooked organic sausage.  Vegetables will be fresh.

About the 30 second domino's, I'm talking about the stuff you see on youtube.... I won't have the "Auto cheeser"  and I won't have the skins pre stretched.

I am working backwards here, and trying to figure, for example if I need to do 1000 pizzas a month, and if 70% (a made up number, but trying to be conservative towards being less busy during the week) of sales are on Fri/Sat that's 700 in 8 days a month, or 88 each Fri/Sat. 

If your pizza maker can do a pie in 1.5 minutes, he can conceivably average 40 in an hour.  However, he must also watch over and cook the pizzas in the oven, take them off with a peel, and slice them.  Also, he'd have to make sure his station is fully stocked (during the 1 to 3 hours that you're counting on for heavy volume) with shredded mozzarella, toppings, pizza sauce and dough.

For that kind of volume, I would prefer to have at least 2 (or maybe 3) pizza makers working the shift.  I'd split up the duties.  For a 2 man staff, I'd have one guy make the pizzas (up to topping it with mozzarella cheese) while the other person finishes topping it, cooks it in the oven, and slices it.  For a 3 man staff, I'd have one guy stretching out the dough, the second pizza maker topping it, while the third one mans the oven and makes sure the toppings are always filled.  The duties need to be split, otherwise, they'll keep bumping in to each other and get less work done.

[pcampbell]

This particular place I keep looking at is very small so there could really only be one pizzaiolo plus help for removing, cutting  and boxing.    So it is a question of whether or not the potential volume with one maker plus help in that space is enough.   

As for myself yes I would like to be making the pizzas and will be on the stone, no screens.   Never timed myself but I can certainly do that, but like many have said the circumstances are not the same as making one casually at home vs making one after another after another for 1 hour let alone 3    

[RoadPizza]

This particular place I keep looking at is very small so there could really only be one pizzaiolo plus help for removing, cutting  and boxing.    So it is a question of whether or not the potential volume with one maker plus help in that space is enough.   

As for myself yes I would like to be making the pizzas and will be on the stone, no screens.   Never timed myself but I can certainly do that, but like many have said the circumstances are not the same as making one casually at home vs making one after another after another for 1 hour let alone 3    

I'd suggest that you practice first.  Get a job at a local pizzeria.  Get good at it.  If you practice at your own store, it may hurt your business.  If you must insist on practicing at your own place, hire someone to be the primary pizza maker and practice when you can (just think of the primary pizza maker as an investment in yourself).  It takes a while before you can get really good at it.  You'll need a lot of repetition to get comfortable.  A lot of pizza makers take 6 months to a year to become really proficient at their job.  And whether you look at it as an art or as a job, pizzamaking is still a skill that needs to be honed.

I don't make pizza at home and I have a lot of respect for those that do.  I work with volume; a few of our stores can do upwards of 500 - 700 transactions on a good day.  We have 25 stores and hope to open at least 3 more this year.

Rereading your post:  yes, one pizza maker plus help can do it.  However, the pizza maker must be pretty good at his job and the helper should be more like a pizza maker-in-training.

[Jackitup]

Like a chef/cook needs a sous chef/dishwasher. 1 to run the show and 1 to help make it work and do the running. Gotta have some backup cuz it sucks to be in the weeds, neck deep in sh!! and no light ahead!! ;-) Raised in the restaurant biz from an early age and smart enough not to stay in it...Great stuff, must be hard as nails. Now it's for fun and family.
Jon

[GotRocks]

Here are my plans, maybe you can see if ti is doable for you?

I plan a minimum 3-person crew for pizza op's

A dedicated oven tender, his job will be oven related only, getting pies in, rotated and moved and keeping the oven fueled with wood.

A dedicated make-line person, stretching, topping and handing the pies off the the oven tender,

A cutter-panner, his job will be to cut and pan pizza's only, with his lightened duties,  he should be able to lend a hand on the make line by stretching , and he can also be my gopher to help keep the line stocked.

It may work, it may not work, I will not know until we get there.

The reason I am doing a dedicated oven tender is that I am bringing a WFO into the kitchen, I do not plan on running it above 850 degrees due to my topping choices, but the WFO still requires the pizza's to be turned and moved about for even cooking.

I plan on having 2 weeks to get operations nailed down before our opening, I expect I may need another person floating between positions to cover rushes. I could always pull the cutter and make him a builder and have the servers cut & pan too. Who knows? We'll find out when I get there. (That's why I love this job!!)

[tdeane]

This particular place I keep looking at is very small so there could really only be one pizzaiolo plus help for removing, cutting  and boxing.    So it is a question of whether or not the potential volume with one maker plus help in that space is enough.   

As for myself yes I would like to be making the pizzas and will be on the stone, no screens.   Never timed myself but I can certainly do that, but like many have said the circumstances are not the same as making one casually at home vs making one after another after another for 1 hour let alone 3    

Well, from someone who is doing pretty much what you want to do, 40 an hour is not really reasonable. What size pizzas are you going to make? If I were making just 18" cheese or margherita pies, I could probably make 15- 20 an hour(and that's haulin' ass and with two ovens). If making 14" pies I could probably make 25-30. That's with my wife slicing for me and under perfect conditions. As soon as you start adding toppings, things slow way down.

[pcampbell]

thanks for the input.  I was planning to do 16" and also offer a personal at about 11.5".

[gabaghool]

Here's my setup.
Friday is our busiest pizza day....we sell other things also.
We don't really have a strong pizza lunch business...ever.  Lunch just doesn't see to be a pizza time inmy area...perhaps in slice towns, with lots of foot traffic.

So dinner is my busy time.  Starts around 5, when people start to get out of work and want to pick up a pizza on the way home.  We are usually busy, try NOT to go over a 45 minute pickup time, have around and are busy till aroun 9:30.

We have 1 pounder, two decorators and an oven guy.  That crew gives us about 225-270 pizza's in around a 5 hour period.  Thats 45-55 pies an hour........so forty may be too much for such a small crew.  Oh, and we have 4 Blodget 1000's that fit 4 18" pies or 6 12"pies.