About a year ago I started making my own pizza instead of ordering it in. Not only do a save a lot of money but it is a higher quality product.
It takes about a half hour of prep so I only do it on weekends. I found a quick crust recipe that doesn't require waiting for hours for the dough to rise [1]. The ingredients are just bread flour, yeast, water, salt, olive oil, and sugar.
The toppings and sauce are the most expensive parts. Though I'm sure if I made the sauce from scratch I could shave a dollar but probably not worth the effort.
Tip: buying a jar of yeast is MUCH cheaper than the pre-measured packets that only make one pizza. Those are a rip off. A jar is almost the same price and makes 15 pizzas instead of 1.
For anyone reading this and interested in making their own pizzas, pizzamaking.com is an amazing resource for making pizza at home. Great pizza is all about the temperature it cooks at, and most home ovens can't reach the needed temp of 600F+ for NY style and 900F+ for Neapolitan style pizza. The Blackstone pizza oven is highly recommended, and for for less than $300, it reaches temps of 800F+ and churns out amazing pizzas at home in less than 5 mins of cooking time.
I buy pizza, but make mostly make my own. Try making your dough a day or two ahead of time and put it in the fridge until you need it. It will taste better, less yeasty as quick breads tend to be. It also means you can throw some together at whatever hour suits you and have it ready to go for another day. I've tried it with many dough recipes and they always turn out better.
I'd like to also mention that making your own mozzarella is incredibly easy and worthwhile [0]. I started making my own cheese of all kinds recently, which has been a thoroughly worthwhile time and money investment. But especially when my wife wants to make her cauliflower pizza, I make a big batch of this mozzarella for toppings. This Australian guy Gavin Webber has tons of great instructional videos on Youtube.
Making pizza, especially if you have a wood fired oven, is a lot of fun I find. I usually make pizzas for 10-15 people who we invite over and when the fire dies down, I bake bread. Much nicer (and cheaper) than ordering. There are ofcourse (enough) pizza places who can beat it on quality, but not when ordering in imho.
I happen to have recently turned 160kg of flour, 100kg of tomato sauce, 70kg of mozzarella cheese and 160kg of various toppings into pizza over the span of five days (with many helping hands) at a Dutch hacker camp, SHA2017. See https://twitter.com/pizzahackery for some nice pictures etc. We had a used 14.4kw (yup, 14,400W) electric oven. Some of our observations:
- Letting dough rest really makes a difference. I know, it requires planning etc and I'm impatient and I don't really do it at home either. The best batches we had had risen for 30min outside and then ~20h in the fridge (or in our case, a cooling truck). Even more time would likely help, two to three days seems to be the agreed-upon number, but we didn't have the storage capacity for that. You also don't need a whole lot of yeast when doing that, we used various amounts but 75g dried yeast was plenty for 10kg of flour with a slow rise.
- Quality flour makes a difference, too. We tried several from the cheapest supermarket flour (32ct/kg) to some really nice organic stoneground flour (~1.3€/kg) and the latter is nicer to knead and makes for a better crust. I was sceptical, too (flour is flour, right?), but it really does make a difference if you're going for maximum yummies.
- Oven temperature is important. Whatever your oven's max temperature is, go for that (unless it's a pottery oven), and use a pizza stone or something (and let it heat up for a while), it adds thermal capacity, i.e. the oven won't cool down as much when you put in the pizza. We bought a used pizza oven (picture: https://twitter.com/leonhandreke/status/893173017722982400) that reaches 500°C (930°F), which is pretty impossible at home, but that allowed us to scale the whole thing. At that temperature, pizza takes around 4 minutes to cook (on a screen, less if you put it on the stones directly, but that's a logistical nightmare with 60x80 cm pizzas) and it's perfect. You get the nice browning of the crust without burning the cheese, and the base isn't soggy.
- Sauce is cheap, cheese isn't. For the sauce, either use polpa fine (quite nice) or passata / sieved tomatoes thickened with some tomato paste. Add oregano and basil.
- We didn't have the time and skill to throw the pizza, we rolled it out. Our trays are 60x80 cm so throwing would have been very different. It was still very nice. Maybe throwing would have taken it up another notch, but it wasn't possible for us.
It was an amazing project and people loved it. We gave it away as free pizza with a donations box and the sum of donations exceeded our expectations. We're donating the entire surplus to the EFF, we still have to return some equipment (outstanding deposits), but it's going to be a sizeable amount. A+ experience, would make pizza for hackers again. Maybe I should write an account of the whole operation and post it :)
I think your underselling how cheap yeast is when you forgo the 'convenience tax'. I get WAY more than 15 pizzas worth of risen dough from a ~5 dollar jar.
"The company began accepting orders on Facebook in June, and the feature was an instant hit: Hundreds of orders flowed in during the first few hours. In all forms, digital orders now make up over 60 percent of Papa John’s sales."
So what percent are from facebook? Online orders are 60%, but what percent are from FB? I doubt there are that many.
My closest pizza place wasn't Papa John's, but I ordered online 100% of the time - but I'd never do it through FB.
Yes. I prefer to order online mostly because it minimizes the chance of a mistake. Speech isn't the most accurate form of communication. But, I've never ordered from facebook.
Seems like a fairly non-sequitur paragraph to me. Hundreds within the first few hours could mean 210 pizzas in 5 hours because of novelty factor, then tailing off.
I'm somewhat surprised that national pizza chains in the US haven't done more with their existing driver networks and delivery tech.
Edit: A little more detail...
For their current use of the networks, the apps aren't at all competitive with Uber Eats, Doordash, etc. See http://blog.pizzahut.com/featured/track-your-pizza-with-our-... , for example. It tracks only 3 states. The UI also doesn't do a good job of highlighting state changes...the current state is just a slightly larger circle, of the same color, and no "ping" when it changes.
Then, it seems like they could leverage their networks to do something beyond just delivering their own products. I get that there are potential issues with that, but it's surprising that we've not seen at least some local trial run of that.
There isn't anything special about Pizza delivery that makes it cheaper to do than UberEats or Instacart. The only difference is the margins. Pizza companies can make a $15 pizza for ~$3, and that means they don't lose money even if they spend up to $12 delivering it.
Instacart, on the other hand, likely doesn't have any margins to play with at all, considering the fact that they are paying people to shop and check out at grocery stores. And the stores already have low margins (~1%) which means they likely don't have much in the way of sweetheart deals with the stores. They are likely in the red before the goods even leave the store.
Some restaurant foods might come close to breaking even, but few restaurants approach the margins of pizza-making at high volumes.
But don't worry. There isn't any indication that VC's have figured out math yet, so we aren't in any danger of these services going away.
> For their current use of the networks, the apps aren't at all competitive with Uber Eats, Doordash, etc, for example. It tracks only 3 states. The UI also doesn't do a good job of highlighting state changes...the current state is just a slightly larger circle, of the same color, and no "ping" when it changes.
I guess I'm getting old or something, because I don't understand why you would need anything more detailed than "order received", "order on it's way", and maybe "order delivered" (although you should assumably be aware of this event without an app or website informing you).
If you have the time to watch second-by-second updates of where your food delivery is, why didn't you just go save the $5 delivery fee + tip and pick it up yourself? When I order delivery, it's because I'm doing something that needs my attention and I don't have time to cook or pickup...
Change management at established organizations is hard. When franchises are involved I'm sure it's exponentially harder.
With most things, HN overestimates the ability of most organizations to overcome inertia. FB, AMZN, GOOG, etc are anomalies when it comes to managing change at large organizations.
When looking into the decline of automats (Amazon's recent announcement is automat like), one was the fact that vending machines did not have a bill acceptors. Inflation meant more coins was a hassle...
Now, paying by human exchange is being trumped by the finger only
[+] [-] throwaway2016a|8 years ago|reply
About a year ago I started making my own pizza instead of ordering it in. Not only do a save a lot of money but it is a higher quality product.
It takes about a half hour of prep so I only do it on weekends. I found a quick crust recipe that doesn't require waiting for hours for the dough to rise [1]. The ingredients are just bread flour, yeast, water, salt, olive oil, and sugar.
The toppings and sauce are the most expensive parts. Though I'm sure if I made the sauce from scratch I could shave a dollar but probably not worth the effort.
Tip: buying a jar of yeast is MUCH cheaper than the pre-measured packets that only make one pizza. Those are a rip off. A jar is almost the same price and makes 15 pizzas instead of 1.
[1] http://allrecipes.com/recipe/20171/quick-and-easy-pizza-crus...
[+] [-] mpcovcd|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] twothamendment|8 years ago|reply
You don't have to go to this extreme, but it gives you an idea: http://www.bakingsteel.com/blog/72-hour-pizza-dough
[+] [-] icc97|8 years ago|reply
I'd rather experiment with the toppings rather than the pizza dough making. This works even better with my 4yo daughter.
I find that there's very little extra time spent putting the toppings on and cooking vs ordering, waiting and collecting from the door.
This can then be done any night of the week.
[+] [-] fapjacks|8 years ago|reply
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VbuBcNCgAc
[+] [-] vkjv|8 years ago|reply
I also make my own pizza and it is very tasty; however, I find it incredibly difficult to beat the $6.99 2-topping medium pizza deal for pick-up.
[+] [-] tluyben2|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pasbesoin|8 years ago|reply
But I seem to recall from helping my parents (well, mother) with their bread maker, that there is a pizza dough mode.
I gather this would prepare the dough, without (obviously) baking it.
[+] [-] BlackjackCF|8 years ago|reply
I started making my own pizzas because my ex was celiac's and I was lactose intolerant, which is a recipe for garbage pizzas when you go out.
Bought Trader Joe's cauliflower crust and started making my own pizzas. Delicious.
[+] [-] lorenzhs|8 years ago|reply
- Letting dough rest really makes a difference. I know, it requires planning etc and I'm impatient and I don't really do it at home either. The best batches we had had risen for 30min outside and then ~20h in the fridge (or in our case, a cooling truck). Even more time would likely help, two to three days seems to be the agreed-upon number, but we didn't have the storage capacity for that. You also don't need a whole lot of yeast when doing that, we used various amounts but 75g dried yeast was plenty for 10kg of flour with a slow rise.
- Quality flour makes a difference, too. We tried several from the cheapest supermarket flour (32ct/kg) to some really nice organic stoneground flour (~1.3€/kg) and the latter is nicer to knead and makes for a better crust. I was sceptical, too (flour is flour, right?), but it really does make a difference if you're going for maximum yummies.
- Oven temperature is important. Whatever your oven's max temperature is, go for that (unless it's a pottery oven), and use a pizza stone or something (and let it heat up for a while), it adds thermal capacity, i.e. the oven won't cool down as much when you put in the pizza. We bought a used pizza oven (picture: https://twitter.com/leonhandreke/status/893173017722982400) that reaches 500°C (930°F), which is pretty impossible at home, but that allowed us to scale the whole thing. At that temperature, pizza takes around 4 minutes to cook (on a screen, less if you put it on the stones directly, but that's a logistical nightmare with 60x80 cm pizzas) and it's perfect. You get the nice browning of the crust without burning the cheese, and the base isn't soggy.
- Sauce is cheap, cheese isn't. For the sauce, either use polpa fine (quite nice) or passata / sieved tomatoes thickened with some tomato paste. Add oregano and basil.
- We didn't have the time and skill to throw the pizza, we rolled it out. Our trays are 60x80 cm so throwing would have been very different. It was still very nice. Maybe throwing would have taken it up another notch, but it wasn't possible for us.
It was an amazing project and people loved it. We gave it away as free pizza with a donations box and the sum of donations exceeded our expectations. We're donating the entire surplus to the EFF, we still have to return some equipment (outstanding deposits), but it's going to be a sizeable amount. A+ experience, would make pizza for hackers again. Maybe I should write an account of the whole operation and post it :)
[+] [-] graphitezepp|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] badloginagain|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mbesto|8 years ago|reply
> Not only do a save a lot of money
So, it's not cheaper.
[+] [-] Lewton|8 years ago|reply
Unless you have a wood oven, you need to find better pizzarias to order from
[+] [-] twothamendment|8 years ago|reply
So what percent are from facebook? Online orders are 60%, but what percent are from FB? I doubt there are that many.
My closest pizza place wasn't Papa John's, but I ordered online 100% of the time - but I'd never do it through FB.
[+] [-] vkjv|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wepple|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] losteverything|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tyingq|8 years ago|reply
Edit: A little more detail...
For their current use of the networks, the apps aren't at all competitive with Uber Eats, Doordash, etc. See http://blog.pizzahut.com/featured/track-your-pizza-with-our-... , for example. It tracks only 3 states. The UI also doesn't do a good job of highlighting state changes...the current state is just a slightly larger circle, of the same color, and no "ping" when it changes.
Then, it seems like they could leverage their networks to do something beyond just delivering their own products. I get that there are potential issues with that, but it's surprising that we've not seen at least some local trial run of that.
[+] [-] saosebastiao|8 years ago|reply
Instacart, on the other hand, likely doesn't have any margins to play with at all, considering the fact that they are paying people to shop and check out at grocery stores. And the stores already have low margins (~1%) which means they likely don't have much in the way of sweetheart deals with the stores. They are likely in the red before the goods even leave the store.
Some restaurant foods might come close to breaking even, but few restaurants approach the margins of pizza-making at high volumes.
But don't worry. There isn't any indication that VC's have figured out math yet, so we aren't in any danger of these services going away.
[+] [-] Alupis|8 years ago|reply
I guess I'm getting old or something, because I don't understand why you would need anything more detailed than "order received", "order on it's way", and maybe "order delivered" (although you should assumably be aware of this event without an app or website informing you).
If you have the time to watch second-by-second updates of where your food delivery is, why didn't you just go save the $5 delivery fee + tip and pick it up yourself? When I order delivery, it's because I'm doing something that needs my attention and I don't have time to cook or pickup...
[+] [-] brd|8 years ago|reply
With most things, HN overestimates the ability of most organizations to overcome inertia. FB, AMZN, GOOG, etc are anomalies when it comes to managing change at large organizations.
[+] [-] ghaff|8 years ago|reply
Those are something like some local high school kids who work mostly for tips and a telephone.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] 659087|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] losteverything|8 years ago|reply
Now, paying by human exchange is being trumped by the finger only