Opening a Fast Casual Pizza Concept?

Many people about to embark on the Fast Casual Pizza adventure are wondering should I or shouldn’t I? When asking opinions remember that:

Opinions are like belly buttons-everybody has one so the best advice is to do it your way and follow your own vision. Ultimately you are the person putting in your monies and sweat equity so being the chief cook and bottle washer gives you the final say-good or bad.

A couple things to look at though are as follows:

1) Does your location have enough potential traffic to warrant a fast casual concept? In other words, is it in a place with people that need to eat fast and (usually) inexpensively?

2) Is there a potential for foot traffic and a lunch crowd verses a destination location that people will have to drive up to? If they have to drive to your location, is there ample parking?

3) Is the size of the space conducive to fast casual and laid out to facilitate easy entry? Service? Exit?

4) Do you have the proper oven and recipes for fast production?

5) Is your potential customer base and product in sync?

6) Do you have a trendy design?

7) Is your pizza any good or is just something to fill up on?

8) Is your model workable without wait staff?

If you have already looked at these questions you are way ahead of the game and stand a good chance of competing in the fast casual race. If you haven’t then you may want to consider speaking to someone with experience or going out and making the rounds to see what is and what is not working in different areas and environments. Personally I feel that a quality product delivered in a nice environment by a pleasant, courteous, professional staff will always find an audience if you can promote and survive long enough for word to get out. However most people are looking for the elusive “sure thing” which is mystical and not real because most of the successful places have had huge research, trial and error before they found the “formula” for success. Persistence, hard work and the ability to think and change on your feet will get you far but following what the big boys are doing and have already figured out will eliminate some of the trail and hopefully most of the error. For those about to jump in the arena-I salute you.

Here are some places you may want to visit in your quest and some contacts you may wish to make:

Revolve Pizza, Blaze, Pizza Locale, Spin Neapolitan, Pie Five, Piology, Fired Pie, Fuel Pizza, Goodfella’s Pizza School New York, Cucinova, 800 Degree, Papa Pancho, Pizza Studio and a host of others. The reason I mention Pizza School New York is for those who have no idea about pizza or brick oven pizza and want a first-hand view of a live pizza operation featuring the Mack Daddy of ovens from the NewYork Brick Oven Company for training. Many roads lead to Rome but as any tourist can tell you the easiest and simplest direction is best for strangers. Happy Pizza! May you roll in the dough and enjoy the adventure.

Why are revolving or rotator brick ovens better?

There are many reasons to choose a revolving brick oven over a conventional fixed deck brick oven. First and foremost is the consistency of pizza baked in a revolving brick oven compared to a regular brick oven. In a revolving brick oven you can place your pizza on the cooking surface and let it cook, no need to spin it or reach into a hot oven and rotate the pizza. The heat in a revolving brick oven is evenly dispersed as the stone rotates (some call them rotator ovens). Because the cooking surface is not fixed with the heat source or fire in one place you don’t have to continually move your pizza around the cooking deck to avoid burning and cold spots.

Ease of use is another important feature. Anyone with common sense can be trained to use the oven and handle pizza in a few minutes’ verses the months of training to work a conventional brick oven. This allows owners that are not the pizza men to have much more control and flexibility with staff and avoids having to rely on only one or 2 key personnel to be your experts. Not only that, but your pizza making will be more consistent with less responsibility on your pizza men cooking with the same style and ability.  Next comes speed. You may not think this is as important as it is but if you have ever been stuck on a regular brick oven on a Friday night during the dinner rush you would understand. There is nothing worse than turning away paying customers because your oven has to get hot or it’s too hot and has to cool off. These thigs are completely handled by the New York Brick Oven Companies Revolving Brick Ovens because the cooking temperature is constant and set. The rotating or rotator brick oven cooking surface is constantly reheated resulting in no fade or cold deck. You don’t get hot spots because the entire cooking surface is the same temperature. As an operator this takes a lot of the guess work out and adds a lot of dependability.

New York Brick Oven Company

Now a topic near and dear to most owners is labor. Between wages, insurance, overtime, social security and workers comp every dollar you spend on labor gets multiplied. This adds up really quickly and can make or break your operation. A revolving or rotator brick oven can help save labor because your pizza man is not “stuck” to the oven and can make more pies as his pizzas are baking because he does not have to be at the oven constantly turning and moving the pies. This is a tremendous benefit as anybody who has ever worked a brick oven for any period of time can tell you.

The stress of having to be aware of pizza and a few seconds of distraction can set the whole operation back by having to remake the burnt pizza. 

If you are using wood and gas as a heat source you can regulate the temperature without worrying about having to continually monitor the temperature and add wood since the gas will keep it level. Not only that but the wood consumption goes way down as it is not the only heat source. Now if you have multiple units or are planning multiple units the value goes up proportionately across the board by having a consistently baked pizza from a revolving/rotator oven that is easy to use but more importantly-easy to train your pizza makers on.  This is why the New York Brick Oven Company is leading the industry and quickly becoming the top choice for FastCasual Pizza and start- up artisan pizza places across America.