Choosing the right pizza-making equipment for your new venture is one of the hardest decisions you have to make. On one hand you do not want to spend a lot of money as you don’t know how well the new venture will be received. On the other hand you do not want to short change yourself where you do not have enough production capability. The key is to pick pizza-making equipment that is not too expensive but is expandable, so if [hopefully] things do take off well, we can simply purchase additional units to stack up and increase production volume.
As far as ovens, a good starting example would be a Peerless C-131, Gas or electric oven. This oven is capable of cooking three 18” pizzas (electric model) or four 18" pizzas (gas model) in a very small footprint and is a very cost effective solution for testing the waters. If you feel more confident that your new venture will be a success, you may consider a conveyor oven, where you simple place the product on one end of the conveyor and it will come out ready to serve from the other end. A popular example of this is the Lincoln Impinger Countertop.
Even though these type of ovens are typically more expensive than a small deck oven, the convenience and the savings in labor will soon add up. In addition you can easily throw different products at this type of oven and you will be amazed of how well the products are finished. Chicken wings, open sandwiches and hot pockets are some popular examples. Of course you can prepare these in a deck oven also but the conveyor system is simply a much easier method.
Finally, you need to keep your ingredients cool. This can be accomplished by simply having a few containers on an ice bed [remember always check your local codes] or getting a table top or a free standing prep table. An example of the table top model would be Sliverking SKPS-12. This is a cost effective refrigerated solution that would be a great starter. If things do grow and you now need some additional storage for your ingredients, the you would need to upgrade to something like the True TPP-44 [which is 44” wide] or bigger units if you have the space. As it gets busier you will need to oversize your ingredient containers so you are not constantly filling them up.
