Whether you are deciding on what the best oven is for your concept or need staff training to get the best results from your Wood Stone oven, I can help.
For over 15 years now, I have been helping independent operators, chains, and institutions decide on the best Wood Stone Oven, size and configuration, additional equipment layout, menu design, and training for their Wood Stone equipment.
Visiting the Wood Stone Test Kitchen is an absolute treat. You get to see an equipment demo, meet the folks at the factory, and tour their amazing facility. Wood Stone manufactures and sells ovens, and does a great job at that. However, truly understanding what the best oven is for you and how it will work in your concept takes a bit more thought. Once your build-out is complete and it is time to cook, on-site training is really what it takes to get the best results from your Wood Stone Oven. This forward-thinking strategy will ensure your success by creating efficient kitchen flow, systems, recipes and most of all in-depth, passionate training of your staff.
Understanding the flow of your food with a stone hearth oven is imperative to creating a successful pizza program from your equipment. Perhaps you are cooking more than pizza out of the oven. Do you have the right prep area? Do you have the correct design in refrigeration space? Have you designed space for proper dough management? Where does the food land to be plated and finished prior to service? These are all important questions to ask when planning to operate an efficient kitchen program. It makes no sense to create a space that is challenging to work in. Use my services for this and/or let’s work together with your design team to create the right functional space through-out your kitchen.
The kitchen design and oven choice work around the menu. The menu comes first, which is normally pizza. What style of pizza? What size of pizza? How much production are we looking at? From here, we can decide oven size and configuration. Wood Stone has 15 different oven models with-in the Bistro, Mt. Series, and Fire Deck ovens. This does not include the Designer Series Ovens. Within those 15 different models these ovens can be configured with multiple doors, flame orientation, fuel choices, all of which can be to your benefit or not. What will really work best for you? Let my experience guide you along the way.
Creating the style of pizza is normally a client’s number 1 priority. The client has determined if they want a Neapolitan Style Pizza or a New York Style Pizza etc. With this confirmation, once again we can determine oven models and configuration. It will also determine how we use the oven, and at what temperature. This will allow us to created different menu items focused around the style of pizza we are aiming for.
Menu items other than pizza will determine if other equipment is needed in the kitchen to prepare, hold, and execute these items along with the pizza.
Finally, after all of this is accomplished, recipes, systems, and training come into play. With nearly 40 years of restaurant experience under my belt, I completely understand the challenges of every operator when it comes to staff training. That is why I create recipes and systems that can be delivered and trained in unison. Along with that comes pure appreciation for employees that step up and come to work every day to learn and be inspired through the passion of cooking in a stone hearth oven. Where many operators are challenged with today’s labor force I embrace this and challenge each and every trainee to be inspired with what they will learn.
I have put together very simple systems to get the most of your Wood Stone Oven. I would love to share these systems with you and your staff so they have more confidence in their job and you get better results from your oven with more consistent product. With training, your staff will be proud of what they have learned and motivated to produce great products from you oven.