Friday nights at Family New York Pizza used to be the best of times and the worst of times for Rob Papile. Business would boom at his Tannersville, Pa., store, but his two deck ovens couldn't handle the demand.

 

"It was tough to keep up any time it was busy," said Papile.John Daisy created his "too busy" problem by adding 1,900 square feet and 90 seats to his 3,300-square-foot, 80-seat Breckenridge, Colo., restaurant, Fatty's Pizzeria. His three deck ovens couldn't keep up with the high-season skier rush."

 

There was no way we could have (enlarged) this place without doing something about the ovens," said Daisy.Both men knew that adding capacity wasn't as simple as buying more deck ovens. They needed ovens that would help them work faster but fit into a limited amount of floor space. Those ovens also would have to cook their pizzas as well as their deck units and at an affordable cost.

 

Such operators are ready for an oven upgrade, said Richard Dunfield, a sales representative for San Antonio, Texas-based Roto-Flex Ovens."When a guy is starting to get backed up on busy nights, say an hour to an hour-and-a-half delivery times, then he's a pretty good candidate," said Dunfield. "He's got customers saying to themselves, 'Do I want to wait that long?'"

 

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No operator wants to spend a lot of money on a new oven, but when they understand they're likely turning away business because they can't meet demand, they see the expense as a necessary investment. What concerns operators most about buying a new oven is how it will affect their crusts. Many perfect their recipes using deck ovens — well known for imparting a classic crispness and color to pizza crusts by cooking them directly on the hearth — and want the same result from their next purchase.

 

Daisy also considered buying a conveyor in order boost speed, but a conversation with another operator from the East Coast worried him instead.

 

"I was at a seminar where this guy was talking about how famous his pizzeria was," Daisy recalled. "So when I asked what kind of oven he had, he hesitated to say he had a conveyor oven."

 

The operator told Daisy the oven made consistent pizzas quickly, but that even he truly preferred

a hearth-baked pie.

 

The operator's story led Daisy to investigate a Roto-Flex oven, which features multiple, circular stone decks spaced vertically on a rotating center axle. It produced the hearth-baked crust characteristics he desired and cooked his pizzas with the speed and ease typically credited to conveyor ovens.

 

"Once you put it in the oven, you don't have to touch it until it's done," Daisy said. "You don't have to spin the pizzas like you do in a traditional deck oven. It spins them itself."

 

Much as Dunfield said he'd like to sell an oven to every operator who thinks he needs a bigger, faster, better unit, he admits that's not always necessary.

 

"If you're looking to keep overall costs down, I'd probably start with a deck oven or two," he said. "If you're battling a poor labor pool, you might consider a conveyor. But if I'm looking to cook a bunch of pizzas without having to rotate them a bunch of times, I'm definitely going with a Roto-Flex."