Okay, so I'm sure I'm going to hear a lot of people say I should work in a shop first but honestly, I can't afford to leave my home here in Asia right now, and the cast-iron pie's I make at home are better than just about every pizzeria in my city and I'm too arrogant to learn from them.
I'm going to start off by saying that I'm a little cocky and naive about all of this right now, but a little bit of that is because I'm genuinely angry that the most terrible pizza chains are being super successful here. It's all super mediocre Neapolitan, or small cardboard pies with plastic cheese on top.
Here's what I'm trying to accomplish.
Open a wood-fired NYC style slice shop in Asia with house-made mozz and imported tomatoes(the tomatoes here are terrible, maybe in the future I can try to grow some plum styled tomatoes). I have absolutely no restaurant experience and have so many questions, I'm really hoping some of yall can help me out, I've done over 4 weeks of research on cheesemaking, pizza making, building a wood-fired oven, and overall equipment that I'll need, these are some questions I haven't been able to answer on my own.
1. Besides the location side of things, when I'm looking for a space for a slice shop, what kind of things should I look out for or be wary of? One of my concerns is will the exhaust from my oven bother my upstairs neighbour if they are on their balcony hanging their clothes? Does it usually burn pretty clean at 700-900f?
2. I've found a raw milk supplier for making fresh mozz, what should be my top concerns for safety besides keeping it refrigerated at every stage until the cheese making?
3. There's a company around here making wood-fired ovens for $4k~ USD, as someone with no construction experience am I getting ahead of myself by building one? It seemed pretty easy from watching other people, make sure I have the right materials, slice bricks, mix concrete, and assemble...
4. There's a lot of rats in Asia, is there any way to foolproof my shop from those little f****** besides regular pest control (is that usually enough?)? Do they like dough? Are the proofing cabinets that I build going to be safe overnight?
5. In NYC they reheat a slice in their 600-700f degree pizza ovens, is it okay to do this with a wood-fired oven burning at 800-900f?
Thanks in advance everyone, I've learned so much from lurking on this forum for months.
