I don't typically necro a topic this old, but I feel I must. I worked at Godfather's Pizza in the 80's while in High School and I am pretty familiar with their practices. Since I'm sure the experiment recreating their pies went as far as it could with the information at hand, I can provide the following details.
1. Their dough was made using giant powder packs with added water in an extremely large mixing bowl with a metal hook attachment. It was made for that day only and was never refrigerated.
2. Their sauce came in very large cans that were mixed with the spices from a spice envelope about the size of an 8x11 mailing envelope in a mixing bowl smaller than the dough mixer, but larger than a kitchen mixer. The spices were almost all Oregano and Basil, so you got that part correct. The sauce came out pretty spicy. I delivered for Domino's in college and their sauce was WAY less spicy than Godfather's.
3. Their cheese came already grated and I was told it was low sodium mozzarella. I'm sure that was because we used so much more of it than everyone else that if it wasn't low on salt, our pizzas would be too salty to eat.
4. That huge amount of cheese would form a glue over the ingredients under it. The meat and veggies down below didn't fry in oil on top of the cheese as much as they steamed under the cheese. Pepperoni would therefore still be tender and not fried to a hard crisp. You knew you did it right if there were lots of brown spots on the pale yellow cheese from stuff cooking down below it.
5. Their oven was 450-500 degree conveyer metal mesh oven that baked the pies for 15 minutes. Once they came out they were immediately moved out of the steel pan so they didn't get soggy. Unless we were slammed, we would let it rest for a minute before cutting so the cuts didn't re-seal by that cheese (it was like glue in a way)
6. The quality of their sausage crumbles was outstanding. Sausage slices don't cut it. The only other chain I found to have that quality of sausage was Numero Uno in the late 80's/early 90's.
They came up with a pie while I was there called the 7 cheese pie. It had Mozzarella,Provolone,Cheddar,Parmesan, and I think Colby, Asiago and Fortina. It also had a very thin crust on top of the main pie (on top of the sauce and meats and veggies) which was pinched over the lower crust to seal it, and on top of that went a little bit of more sauce and the seven cheese. It was absolutely to die for.
I personally felt during my time there and since that their pizzas were more about the 1. cheese, 2. meat quality and 3. sauce spice than their crust. The crust didn't taste fried like Pizza Hut nor burnt on the bottom like Roundtable. They didn't make it too thick. Deep dish does not equal thick crust. That would be a sicilian pizza. I am game for any future attempts at re-creating a classic Godfather's pizza. I honestly never thought about the milk powder in their crust mix. That's interesting.
