Fast Casual Pizza, Fast Casual Pizza, it's on all the modern day gold miners tongues. Places like Live Basil. Chipotle, Blaze, Spinfire, Pizza Rev, Uncle Maddio's, Revolver and the don't forget the big boys about to jump ship over to fast casual-Pizza Hut and Dominos. Now along with all these players are the dozens and dozens of start ups who envision being the next McDonalds of pizza. How do you get the odds in your favor with so much competition? How do you stand out in the crowd? What will make you better, more efficient and able to fight the big boys? Well one way a perennial favorite in New York did it, was by making an incredible pizza in wood burning
Revolving Brick Ovens. The competition is fierce in New York City with pizza places coming and going on every corner year after year so when a Place like
Goodfella's Brick Oven Pizza has it's 21st birthday it really is cause for celebration. "Staying ahead of the game while maintaining the integrity of your pizza and always streamlining production is key" said world champion pizza maker and co-founder of Goodfella's Pizza. A game changer for them was the addition of a revolving deck wood burning brick oven which allows for perfectly uniform cooking of each pizza while eliminating the drawbacks of traditional brick ovens such as: hot spots, cold spots, hard to regulate temperatures and unskilled pizza makers. The New York Brick Oven Company will be demonstrating there Inferno series revolving brick ovens at the this years Pizza Expo in Las Vegas Nevada at the end of March in booth 231 for those interested.
The next key "ingredient" is just that: you have to use fresh ingredients these days. The pizza eating public is not the same uninformed group as it used to be and they know they have a lot of choices now as to where they want to spend their hard earned money. Why would they buy frozen dough, sauce froma jar or even worse a sauce made from reconstituted powder. Then you have your cheese. Processed, hardened oils are a thing of the past and almost any supplier can give you access to a premium fresh mozzarella so why not use it. Produce is now being purchased from local growers when feasible and helps the community while ensuring a fresh product. That being said you need a little understanding of how to best assemble your ingredients to make a good pie so you can read up on it, watch videos, experiment or take classes from a place like the
Pizza School of New York which turns out top notch pizza makers from around the world(the training is priceless in the course of a career).
Once you have that mastered, you need a business model to build your restaurant after. In this case unless you have experience it can't hurt to go out and see what the successful fellows are doing and then put your own spin on it by adding your own flare or style. A good idea is to avoid head on competition till you get your feet wet and gain some experience running your own place. I say this because if you start in a place with little or no competition you have a better chance of carving out your own niche and drawing customers without going head to head with major brand recognition, huge marketing budgets and tremendous buying power which can effect final costs and offers to your customers.
The pizza game can be tremendously fun and rewarding but is not without a lot of very hard work, knowledge and skill. Simple enough to say now go and make it so.
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| Scot Cosentino of Goodfella's Pizza with his Vodka Pie Sensation |
This simple statement made me think of my past 20 years in the pizza industry and an observation I have made after seeing hundreds of employees come and go. Kids that are genuinely busy and engaged in attainable goals are not the ones using drugs. It is the ones that are not winning, not involved the game of life with no purpose or direction that get into drugs and the attending trouble. This is especially prone to occur when their "friends" are of the same ilk. There is always someone in the crowd who thinks it's cool to smoke weed and thinks nothing of the people he or she encourages to join him in using drugs as a way of combating what I have seen over and over as pain, upset and lack of direction. When you say "hey that is not cool" you set the tone and make it known to all how you stand and maybe the example you just set will prevent another from going down that road. 
