August 2015 | Brick Ovens For Sale

20 Aug

Open A Fast Casual Pizza Place?

A lot of people ask should I Open A Fast Casual Pizza Place?

Well, 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 hard work 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 trails and hopefully most of the error. For those about to jump in the arena-I salute you.

Fast Casual Pizza Places

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 New York 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 and may you soon be rolling in the dough!

Chains Jumping Into Fast Casual Pizza

Chains Jumping Into Fast Casual Pizza

Once the fast-casual giant Chipotle bought into the Pizza Locale fast casual pizza concept many foodies took notice, then came Wetzel Pretzel’s with Blaze and Sbarro’s with it’s new concept called Cuchinova and the floodgates for many franchise holding groups were open. They began looking for new concepts and started creating new concepts such as Revolve with namesake revolving brick ovens from The New York Brick Oven Company The revoving brick ovens are pumping out brick oven pizza faster than they can be assembled. What is the attraction? Why is fast casual pizza exploding across the US? What defines the category and who are the real players behind it?

Well, the pizza segment has always had its share of the market with giants such as Pizza Hut and Domino’s. Yes, they are till dominating, but what is the attraction to fast casual pizza concepts and the Chaind jumpng into fast casual pizza ? Fast casual is cool! its hot , fast, and fresh and usually served in a cool trendy atmosphere at a reasonable cost. Factor in the entertainment value of watching your pizza prepared and cooked in under 5 minutes and you get the picture.Another very important part of the equation is lunch. What does that mean you may wonder since pizza was always available for lunch in most sit-down restaurants with table service or slice shops dominated by players such as Sbarro Pizza in a mall near you. Speed is the answer, most busy towns and commercial areas with a working clientele could not wait for a conventional pizza place to take an order, bake a pie and then serve it in the limited lunch break customer’s had. Once you factor in getting to a location you can see how pizza, especially gourmet pizza did not fit the equation.

The Revolving Brick Oven

Then came the brick oven revolution with pies under 3 minutes and then the revolving brick oven revolution which made it possible to be even faster but more importantly to able to make a consistently perfect pizza without a highly skilled workforce. This high-speed production combined with a low food cost was the ticket to a successful model along the lines of a Chipotle or Panera bread.

Now take this model and add a reduced labor cost with a reduced labor force. Since table service is not needed and fewer pizza men with the skill to operate the revolving brick oven your set to crack the fast casual pizza code.

Pizza Consulting

Another big factor behind the scene has been the training has been Pizza School of New York helping set up franchises, conversions, new concepts, brew pubs, pizza trucks and traditional mom and pop pizza places all over the United States and the world with tremendous results.

Whatever your part in this brave new world of fast casual pizza is, you are in for a big treat. From new contenders with dreams of bringing their concepts to the foreground. To the small town mainstay looking to mix it up a bit there is plenty of room for everyone and the biggest winner will be the consumers with the ever widening choices being offered and a super healthy dose of competition to keep everyone on their toes and the pizza fresh.

By Scot Consentino Fast Casual Pizza, Revolving Brick Ovens Fast Casual Pizza, Fast casual pizza race 0 Comments

Why Revolving Brick Ovens

Why Revolving Brick Ovens? 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 Operation

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’ versus 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 in 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 thins are completely handled by the New York Brick Oven Companies Revolving Brick Oven. Because the cooking temperature is constant and set. The revolving 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.

Labor Savings

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 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. He does not have to be at the oven constantly turning and moving the pies. This is a tremendous benefit to anybody who has ever worked a brick oven for any period of time can tell you.If you are using wood and gas as a heat source you can regulate the temperature. No more worrying about having to continually monitor the temperature and add wood since the gas will keep it level. The wood consumption also goes way down as it is not the only heat source.

Multi Unit Operators

So if you have multiple units or are planning to open multiple units the value goes up proportionately across the board. By having a consistently baked product from a revolving brick oven you have consistency and happy clients. Remember easy to use, but more importantly, it is easy to train your pizza makers on. This is why the Revolving brick oven is the best choice for all fast-casual pizza chains. And Why New York Brick Oven Company is leading the industry and quickly becoming the top choice for Fast Casual Pizza and start- up artisan pizza places across America.

By Scot Consentino Fast Casual Pizza, Revolving Brick Ovens Fast Casual Pizza, revoling brick ovens, rotating brick ovens 0 Comments

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