how does a pizzeria run out of pizza?
nate & wren @ federal galley, pittsburgh
how does a pizzeria run out of pizza? this is something we used to hear all the time in person, and in reviews, but something that over time has come to be somewhat accepted by our customers. I remember after a particularly difficult day a man griped, “welp! seems like someone didn't feel like working today!” i felt so defeated. the entire team had just gotten our asses kicked for 8 hours and this stranger was telling us we hadn’t done enough. i can understand the confusion though. we have been conditioned to believe every resource is unlimited…even pizza. and if i’m being honest, we could probably work out a system where we are filling pans non-stop and serving more and more people. the outcome would be more money, but would also mean burnout for us and our staff, time away from our kids and our family, and a decrease in product quality. when money is a business’ sole purpose for operating, inevitably they will cut corners.
when we started this business without even consciously realizing, we established values. perhaps (if i stick with this blog thing), i will discuss more about our other values, but today i wanted to focus on: quality.
it’s an unbelievable stat but since opening in Detroit in 2020 no one else has ever baked our pizza besides me and Nate. prior to that, in Pittsburgh, we split the day working 7 days a week for nearly 2 years. Nate would come in and make the dough at 5am and work until 2pm, and then I would come in and cook until close. we recognized then that this was not a sustainable business model. with two small children we often had to have a birthday party at the restaurant so we could both attend (albeit, while working). or decide which parent would attend our daughter’s recital and which one would work. but it was, and continues to be, so important to us to serve the best possible pizza to every single customer that we feel the need to do it all ourselves. it’s ridiculous, but we feel a tremendous responsibility to our customers.
now someone reading this might think “cmon! I’ve had a bad pizza from there!” and that’s probably true. i recall watching a world renowned pizzaiolo telling an interviewer, “if i make 100 pizzas, i’ll hate 99 of them,” and i could relate. i am beyond critical of myself and what i’m serving every minute of every shift, especially when it’s busy. at the end of the night i find myself repeating the same line to our last few customers: “you came at the perfect time, there was a two hour window we were so busy I had no idea what I was serving…just trying to keep my head above water!”
but that’s just baking the pizzas. there is a whole process beforehand that most people don’t see, and do not know about.
detroit-style pizza is different from NY or Neapolitan style pizza because it is cooked in a pan. Nate makes our dough the day before, portions it by weight, balls it, puts in large rectangular proofing boxes, and into our walk-in cooler. this process is called cold fermentation, and it’s an important part of developing the flavor and texture of our dough. it also makes the finished dough easier to digest. the following day, the dough in the proofing boxes from the previous day is pushed out into a Detroit-style pan and proofs, or rises, for approximately 4 hours before it is ready for baking.
this process ultimately puts a limit on how many pizzas we can sell. we can only fill as many pans as we have, and we can’t simply make more dough when we run out. the dough has to be made, fermented, and proofed—and that takes time. but I want to defend us a little bit here: even with this lengthy process we serve a crazy amount of pizza- roughly 1500 per week. that’s 540 pounds of cheese and 500 pounds of flour.
so, how does a pizzeria run out of pizza? because we choose quality over quantity.
