Employee theft is a problem for any business owner. Some statistics indicate that employee theft causes thousands of businesses each year to go under. Here, I’d like to offer Pizza Today readers a copy of a very important document I used at my ...

I have opened seven restaurants for myself and at least 30 more for clients in my career. The last one to open was last August in Ohio. I’ve designed floor plans for stores smaller than my garage (900) square feet all the way up to a couple of ...

What is the best material to use as a pizza peel release agent? I’ve watched a lot of people make hand-tossed pizzas, and I see that some people use plain flour and others use corn meal on their peels to help slide their pizzas into the oven. W...

There’s nothing sexy about food safety. But running a professional kitchen with proper food-safety protocols in place is the most important aspect of an operation. Not only can a poor health inspection be costly through fines, it can also devas...

Dough Handling Sizing Dough for 18- and 36-inch Pizza By Tom Lehmann When it comes to sizing, do you need to change your dough recipe depending upon how big the crust or pizza is going to be? What if we wanted to offer an 18- or 36-inch pizza? Becaus...

If you’d like to make sourdough breadsticks or pizza crust, you’re going to have to start with a sour! Thankfully, there’s nothing to it. Begin by whisking together 1 1/2 pounds of flour and 1 1/2 pounds of water to make slurry. Pla...

The checklist is long and daunting. You know you want to open a new pizzeria, but you don’t know where to begin. And that’s after you’ve already done it once or twice before, let alone if you’re a first-timer. So, where do you begin? With a p...

Five Tips to Achieve a Crispy Pizza Crust For some of us achieving a crispy crust pizza is like chasing down that legendary Golden Fleece, but it really doesn’t have to be such a massive undertaking. Below are some tips to get you on your way. Tip ...

If your thick crust doesn’t have a light texture, you likely are not proofing the dough properly. Proofing is the act of allowing the dough to rise after it has been formed. This is the final processing step before baking. During proofing, doug...

Did you ever feel like you were in a “tug of war” with your pizza dough? You form or stretch it out to 12 inches in diameter and before you can say “Mozzarella cheese”, then it magically assumes the rather unwanted shape of a ...

Oh no, my pizza dough is blown. What do I do? Have you ever had one of those nights where a storm kept you awake? Then, after getting a few hours of sleep you go to your store to open and find that your dough has blown courtesy of a power outage. It�...

Like a fine wine, rum, bourbon or scotch whiskey, pizza dough is one of those things that just seem to get better when they’re allowed to age a little. There are times when aging, or allowing the dough to ferment, just isn’t an option &md...