I’ve been looking into the idea of opening a pizza shop, and I’ve been fucking around with recipes.
I’ve found that I can substitute different (healthier) flours into the dough mix and come out with the same crust consistency, BUT:
using whole wheat, buckwheat, or rye flour in pizza dough discolors it… the crust turns out brown, or greyish, or white with purple flecks.
if you knew that a discolored pizza crust was healthier, it was aggressively marketed as such, AND it was comparable in price to a “normal” pizza, would you be interested in it? or would the odd color turn you off?
my wife makes a pretty mean wheat pizza… the dough is normally more brown than typical… but everyone who’s tried it thought it rocked. We used to order one from a shop in Regent Square, but you could only order it on certain days, and usually a limited supply… so she started making her own. Hell you can buy frozen “harvest wheat” pizzas now if that’s any indicator
Reduced/Low fat cheese burns easily, usually before the crust is fully cooked. Leaving you with burnt cheese and some raw dough.
When I was the head pizza cook at a place, we ran wheat dough for a while as a $1.50 upcharge. If not used right away, it will proof pretty fast and become “runny” for lack of a better term. The regular white dough I made would stay firmer for longer as long as it was refrigerated. The wheat dough didn’t hold up as long. The wheat dough also became very sticky and hard to work with. (Felt like white dough that is wet and proofed)
And if you do open a pizza shop, I want a job there. I have 3+ years pizza experience. (Making dough from scratch, sauce from scratch, different cheese blend experience, etc.) I enjoy making pizza… being a regular (sautee, salad, fryer, flattop/grille) cook sucks.
when eating pizza i dont give a fuck if its good or bad for me as long as it tastes great… the perception is that if its good for you it won’t taste as good… that stereo type will hurt that as a selling point…
Ill be your test person…Im not down with wheat or multi grain, but i should be eating it more than white bread…I need to find more foods that are healthier to eat…a healthy pizza…where do i sign up?
I make a kick ass taco pizza for those who dont care about healthy pizza…havent made it in forever though.
I have been on a low carb regimen for nearly 2 years and would love to find a pizza shop that would make a true Whole Wheatcrust(not just a ‘wheat’ crust, there is a difference). As foz mentioned, freschetta makes a ‘harvest wheat’ rising crust pizza. While it isn’t true whole wheat, its better than straight white bread piza crust, and it tastes OK.
I think if you had the whole wheat option, it tasted good, and you advertised it, then you would do well with it. I would guess a $1.00-1.50 upcharge would not be a problem. Much more than that and you might have an issue.
I don’t think there will ever be a ‘healthy’ pizza, but if you watch your other fat intake, a whole wheat pizza isn’t a bad choice for an evening meal IMHO.
would the benifit of healtier crust outweight the cheese, the toppings…to make it worth the effort…? those are questions u gotta ask. i mean its like a burger… the greasier it is, the better it usually tastes… i would say the a lot of people eating burgers and pizza aren’t concerned with whats in it… they just are in it for the taste. satisfy the masses, not the minority.
I think it would be good because you are giving more options. Rather than pitching a “healthy” pizza…go the organic route with ALL of your pizzas. Organic food seems to be more in the limelight than just healthy.
If you would make a gluten free dough I would buy it off of you by the pound. I can’t eat any of the aforementioned doughs.
I’d buy a wheat pizza anyday. It pisses me off that they are hard to find. Clearly that is the direction this country is headed, people are looking out for their health, even Giant Eagle has an organic section. I might not serve ONLY wheat pizza, but I would offer it. For me, a quality mozzarella cheese is the only way to go, provo just doesn’t work on a pizza. Most places blend it at best, or use straight provo at worst. Quality ingredients are key, even if they aren’t organic.
If you had a place where sold pizza with no preservatives and other shit in it, I’d go out of my way to eat there, I’d probably make it once a week or so. I love a good pizza, but a wheat pizza is hard to find in the first place, let alone a good one.
You make a quality product that I want, I’ll buy it, regardless of political differences, haha.
do you have any locations picked out? as others have mentioned, the best route might be to market the whole organic / healthy fringe, and place the shop toward sq. hill, shady side, cmu-ish oakland. Those are the people that are going to eat up a whole wheat pizza with tofu and shit. Drunk college students are not going to care what it is made from, they just want cheap and yummy.
Pi seemed to do pretty well in sq. hill. Not sure what drove them out, but they had a great chicken pesto I think it was. I wouldn’t even bother opening that shit in like Millvale. Might have to make it more of a restaurant than your normal pizza shop.
the reason why most pizza shops only use mozzarella cheese is because it is cheaper but you are correct that just provolone on a pizza does give it a different taste to the average person but anyone who likes cheese would like it
i worked in a pizza shop for like 6 years and would try just random things from time to time
another good pizza has pineapple and capicola (sp) with very light on the sauce
People will eat anything that tastes good, but it seems hard to sell enough pizzas based on their whole wheat goodness. I’d guess you would would sell probably more regular pizzas and have a minority buying the healthy pizzas unless you marketed the whole grain pizzas hard. I agree if you went organic you’d have a more noteworthy (albeit more expensive) product.
I am eating a healthy choice pizza as we speak, it seems to have a small amount of cheese, but Parm mixed in it. ITs very low on sause…But it actually tastes really good!!! I hate diet food…this is probably the only thing I will eat from the “low fat frozen” section.
I think you would have a better out come than you think if you opened up a shop as such…and not just pizza…but make sandwiches and such also. A low fat more health conscience joint.
I agree about the location…Aspinwall would be great!!! You have the gyms, the market at delfield and freeport, the hospital across the street…and plenty of ritzy snobby people that think that is the only food that should be eaten. I guarantee great business.
Also…Im all about the Gluten free idea…Dougs mom is gluten and lactoss intolerant and cant eat a bunch of other things too…her food is extremely limited!!! And hard to find!!! I really think this is a great idea…and to know it came from Blanyer kinda scares me…lol