Adam, I don't know how much episodes you're planning about the pizza place, but please make a lot of them and you can make one of every detail. I love learning about things you found out while testing, what works an what didn't and why.
I second this suggestion. I also like seeing the behind-the-scenes of running a restaurant business, so not just the cooking, but the tools, equipment, & preparations.
adam has one of the best analytical minds i've seen in the foodtube universe, so it's great to see him doing a bunch of trial-and-error to refine a unique saleable product. most of the world's great food emerges from millions of repetitions, so i'm hoping he keeps trying different things for a long time
I used to work with one of those convayer ovens. I was actually responsible for cleaning it once a week. got the assembly of the bottom rack wrong once. Whole thing broke down $17k machine at the time, I was mortified. Turns out I just blew a 5 dollar fuse. That got replaced, ran it in reverse, reset the rack, and we were back to making pizza after a 10 minuite heatup. Scared the HELL outta me for my lifelyhood though
@@Ohyoucaughtme The dichotomy of Business, apparently. "I make sure this oven is properly working and cleaned every week!" (I worked at a cookie place once, actually cleaning was about a once in every week kind of thing, so not totally unreasonable) vs "Yeah the last time I got this oven checked by a professional was when I bought it in 94" 🤣
I used to work with a conveyor oven too, but it was multi levels, and you had to be really quick and go from one end of the oven to the other and make sure the pizzas didnt fall on the floor. And then it would keep getting faster!
The engineering of protection systems like that 5 dollar fuse saving you from damaging a very expensive system or expensive components within the system is absolutely fascinating. I can't tell you have often fuses save all our butts every day from homes to cars to aircraft. It can be frustrating finding a fuse fault but when you find the fuse it's always a big sigh of relief 😅
it's a subtle, small touch, but I really appreciate Adam being a conscientious enough parent to blur out the young'uns' faces if/when they wander into a shot.
Long-time fan and an even bigger ragusea podcast listener! This vid gave me major Deja-Vu to the "Why celebrities all have restaurants" podcast. I have no doubt that your heart is in the right place, but make sure to follow the logic you outlined in the pod. Wishing you all the best Adam, keep at it!!
I trust Adam with his restaurant way more than other celebrities, he's known for his home cooking, he's done research on celebrity restaurants and this video shows how much he cares about the restaurant and Joe as a work partner and as a friend He seems way closer to (technically not his) restaurant than other celebrities are The celebrities never made their own prototypes of their products on their own
This really is nothing like the celebrities he mentioned in those videos. He's investing in and helping out an established chain. He has a small stake, and someone who knows what he's doing is already in charge.
@@Jason_Bryant yea i mean he is literally experimenting with the recipe x) what the others mentioned in the pod do is slapping there name on it. And as far as i understood he doesnt even do that.
@@Jason_Bryant Yeah, it's pretty clear that Adam is doing this to some degree just because he's always wanted to own a pizza place, rather than just because he knows a guy. Looking at that pizza, I'm jealous of those students who just get to have that whenever (they have the money to eat out on a student's budget)
Im excited about this series for two reasons: 1 - Behind-the-scenes look at starting a restaurant essentially from scratch is amazing content. 2 - I moved to Farragut at the start of the year, and I love donuts and pizza
This really fascinates me as an engineer, the Methodology of fine-tuning the pizza dough recipe. Whittling it down from 100% doughnut dough - just to check the Extreme case - to 20% through trial and error just speaks to me
As a UT student-turned-employee, I'm really excited to be able to walk over to a local donut shop on the regular. The funny part is that I'm pretty sure there used to be a mediocre Dunkin' Donuts in that spot at Vol Hall that closed down a year ago, so Status Dough is a welcome upgrade! I hope that location eventually sells pizza slices, I'd buy it for lunch everyday.
Adam, please consider adding Sicilian pizza to the menu in future! The ratios you had with higher donut dough creating a puffy, spongier consistency is very similar to Sicilian. Not only is it my favorite type of pizza, but as a native New Yorker, I was shocked to discover how difficult it is to find outside of the NY/NJ area. I assume it's just as rare in Tennessee, so could be a surprise hit!
Excited to see the progress on this! One tip about the tavern style: It's supposed to be thin and crispy. The trick to the crisp is to roll out the dough and dock it the day before and let it air dry in the fridge over night. This ensures that the pizza dough bakes up really crispy. Give it a shot!
Yeah this is not the tavern style I’m familiar with. The tavern styles I had in Chicago had dough that was thin as paper and crisssspy. This is odd and honestly doesn’t look appetizing to me.
@@spencerclark90having grown up in Illinois and family in Illinois, while tavern is definitely not as thin as New York pizza, it's not that much thicker either. Seeing how thick those test pizzas were made me think of school lunch pizzas, not tavern style. Honestly, the Domino's thin is a very close comparison to tavern style if people need something to compare to nationally.
@@jakehr3 & @spencerclark90, the pizza crust experiment reminds me more of "double-dough" pizza (like Falco's on the South Side of Chicago), a thicker "thin crust" that "Old School" types of pizza places offer as another option to the Tavern-Style "cracker crust" made famous by Vito & Nick's (also on Chicago's South Side).
I already love this series. Reminds me of The War Owl building his own map in CSGO - nothing like a classic multi-part project series with some real life implications.
This might be the most Ragusea 'retirement' project I've ever heard of, really appreciate the openness in the project and detail/honesty around the dough testing and am looking forward to seeing this series, hopefully I'll find a way to stop in when I eventually visit the US of A
I think I may have mentioned on one of his videos before. One time I worked at a pizza place that just used the dough recipe on the side of the flour bag, and won awards with it. Doesn't need to be complicated, or even unique. I think the other factors are more important.
About 30 years ago in SF (business trip) I was listening to a morning DJ from New York/New Jersey go completely nuclear on the west coast adulterations of pizza. He started off with the classic "pineapple does not belong on a pizza" and went on from there for nearly an hour without interruption or taking phone calls. While he was mainly concerned with toppings, sauce and dough weren't spared his ire and damnation for straying too far from NYC perfection. It was one of the best uses of a bully pulpit I've ever listened to, even though I personally like pineapple on pizza at times. I've noticed that since then pizza has gone in two very distinct directions: 1) militant return to the classic pizza (take no prisoners, except maybe pineapple), and 2) hearts of romaine on Nutella pizza with Ranch dressing.
I'm forever shocked at how the pineapple thing seems to get people. Personally, one of my favorite pizzas is the hawaiian. We had a brick oven place in town that did one with fresh pineapple, prosciutto, and roasted red peppers. It was great. Even a dominos hawaiian is great though. In fact, growing up, every time there was a pizza party anywhere (I'm in southeast michigan) there was always pepperoni, sausage, "supreme", cheese, and hawaiian.
The joe donut video was my first introduction to Adam and sold me, thank you for being a mellow, honest toober and valuing information over hyperboles!!
My cooking journey started 5+ years ago when I wanted to learn how to make pizza for my friends, which is what brought me to your channel. Fast forward to today, and cooking is one of my favorite hobbies, and I've started developing my own recipes, including a Detroit pizza cooked in a smoker. All that is to say, I'm really enjoying this so far :)
Status Dough... Perfect name for diversifying into any kind of baked good...Or not even baked! Even pasta! Udon! Ramen! Gyoza! Bao! The possibilities are finite, but numerous!
New york style is absolutely a thing to look at for the campus location. Big slices sold individually so students can grab a quick bite for lunch. Worked at a pizza place in a medium sized downtown and it was always popping.
As a Chicago native, that final pizza photo got me very excited, even though I don't live near Knoxville either, lol. Man, I miss Chicago tavern thin sausage pizza.
This is such a great idea. Both the resto and the content series. It reminds me of when I used to work at a Detroit Style pizza shop and the owner spent close to a year testing out pies before he opened up his shop. He claimed he ain't nothing but pizza for a year and just lived off eating his test pies. He also stresed how much time the dough took to get right with proofing and fermenting.
This is a whoolllee lot of videos for a retired youtuber! Not complaining, please do whatever you want to do. I've liked all of your videos post-retirement so far.
Best of luck in your new venture! I think I speak for all your subscribers when I say we wish you all the best of success!! You gave us so much over the years, just feels good to see you progresses and get into things you love more. A new pattern I have seen recently is people in your position invite their viewers to invest. Just a thought, no clue if that would work for you guys but I'm sure there are folks on here who would definitely consider it. Wish i lived in the US to come and try it! Best of luck!
Adam if you're looking to make tavern pizza you have to have fennel seed in the sauce and any sausage. Fennel is the distinctive flavor that makes Chicago tavern style pizza great
“Restaurants fail, that’s what restaurants do” - The Ragusea Podcast, not long ago. All the best in your endeavour, Adam! Been silently supporting since 2019.
@@hidarling641we don't really know if the chain is actually successful. A lot of restaurants open up multiple locations even though they aren't necessarily doing well. Some people just somehow manage to get tons of credit.
This is really cool. Seeing the experimenting for the menu items, let alone the main product, of a restaurant is a perspective that is really interesting and one that just kind is unheard of on RU-vid.
I’ve been enjoying your videos since the beginning and know how much it’s been your “what if?” kind of dream to open a pizza place that for life reasons just never seemed practical for you. I’m so glad you’ve found a way to get as close to realizing that dream as possible without compromising too much on your overall goals and your life trajectory right now. So happy for you Adam!
Holy shit I saw the title and I was like "wow I almost thought he was making an actual pizza place. This is probably a hypothetical tutorial, but wouldn't that be awesome?" AND THEN I PLAYED THE VIDEO AND IT WAS THE THING
Headed to Knoxville for a game in the next month. Friends are already expecting doughnuts so might as well bring some good ones to the tailgate. Thanks for the reminder that this exists and good luck with the pizza!
3:50 "what we both like is elevated basics... it's not anything fancy or novel, it's just the very, very best version of a simple basic thing that everyone wants. like a perfect t-shirt. not with any kind of crazy logo or weird design features, just a perfect, soft t-shirt, that just fits you exactly right. i think we both wanna do that with pizza." what an amazing quote. i resonate with this philosophy whole-heartedly!
In a world where things get knocked down routinely, it's good to see someone like Adam help pick things back up. Support your community, even if it's just pizza. Because it isn't JUST pizza.
I recently started working at a sandwich shop that also makes tavern style pizzas in almost the exact same way except we use pre made crusts, but I cant lie, they are also now my favorite style of pizza
I used to work in a locally owned donut shop similar to Joe's place, and it's awesome to see you supporting someone like him and using your knowledge of food and advertising to better your local economy and food scene! Lookint forward to more videos on this
Imagine a pizza crust, fluffy like a donut but crispy like a churro. Might want to explore that. It's the dough behind the Chinese fritters You Tiao, and also Butterfly fritters. It uses sourdough, and traditionally we use a small amount of the last batch to get this batch's dough fermentation going. In Singapore, some pizza stores create a crust of similar texture - - using new yeast though; not sourdough.
Dude, Adam. Making money can only happen from helping someone else out. If you're not helping someone, then they aren't buying what you're selling. Helping people = making money. Period. Do not feel guilty for the money you have made. You have earned every penny of it.
Really looking forward to the upcoming videos with you and Joe! I think it's an awesome direction you are going in. You have some renewed energy in all the trial and errors, and I wish you luck in your new venture!
Man about a year ago I was looking into quitting my lucrative but soul crushing at times career and looking into opening a pizzeria concept and I remember being so pumped to do experiments and stuff like this. Ultimately, it didn't work out for a number of reasons. Wishing you all the best on fulfilling my dream and hopefully yours too.
I like that Teddy Roosevelt quote, "Do what you can, where you are, with what you have." Exciting to open a food business and the prototype looks good!
When I worked at a pizza shop, we made the dough one day, put it in the freezer to "ferment" for a day or two, then for the days pizza would thaw out a batch from the freezer in the fridge (which we would put in the fridge the previous night before I left for the day) makes a nice tasty dough.
I wonder if the ice shards created when freezing it did something, its how they make the inside of fries fluffy so maybe it tenderised the dough a bit?
3:48 Margherita pizza is my go to, when testing a new place. Really simple. Get a great taste of the crust and sauce. But the "basic pizza", a classic? A really good pepperoni is a U.S staple. Side note: I've been baking bell peppers with pizza toppings inside. 100% recommended.
@flmalegre I wouldn't use green, too green. Lol Red can be a bit too sweet, but they do work. I found orange are perfect for this, well balanced. But which ever you prefer. (It also works super well with cheese-steak fillings)
I think most of your audience agrees that we need many more videos about each step in restaurant business, especially those dealing with rolling out pizza product!
I have extended family in Knoxville Tennessee and we visit there once a year. I actually think I passed by the new status dough location (before it was that obviously) last time I was there. Can't wait to visit and try some pizza next year!
one thing i'd get a lot from family and friends after bringing over food made from pandemic recipe videos like yours was "you should open a bakery/restaurant/etc!". so this video series is going to be fascinating to get a sense of that jump in scale from the home kitchen to a commercial business, best of luck on this!
So happy to hear about your new venture into Pizza! Nothing but best wishes and success for you both. I don't live in TN but man I would so look forward to a location opening somewhere in TX, I'd travel to check it out. Living here vs. my hometown that HAD TONS of Italian immigrants where good quality Italian food makes me miss a great quality pizza so much here. TX has Mexican food covered, but the Italian food places here have made me feel like I'm missing home.
Just got back from visiting family in Dandridge. We have been saying for a few years we need to drive into Knoxville and see it. Now I have my first for sure stop.
If you do delivery/takeout then you coukd replace the plastic table in the middle of the pizza with a small doughnut. That way its not plastic and its tasty.
Most donuts have glaze on them, the whole point of a pizza table is to protect the pizza from the box caving in. But a donut would get nicked and its glaze would smear on the top of the box.... or it'd flake off into the pizza.
@@hidarling641 yeah but they're making the doughnuts so they could just not add a glaze for the pizza-table doughnuts. A pizza shop near me does the same thing but with a garlic knot instead of a doughnut. It works and is tasty.
You mentioned not putting salt into the dough-I prefer that too, but one way to get a little seasoning in the dough is to actually salt the cooking surface before dropping the pizza onto it. I also like a higher hydration dough than it looks like you're making, but it looks great! Excited to see more
So much fun. I've been making your Pan Pizza 2.0 recipe every week for almost a year. If I lived anywhere near Knoxville I would definitely become a regular.
Home-made pizza in Norway is to put a bolognese/ragu on the bottom (ground beef plus tomato) with white/Swiss cheese on top, plus some oregano. You want to crisp up the cheese. Nowhere in Norway bakes that in a restaurant. Takes a while since stoves don't get up to pizza oven temperatures, but in many ways, I feel it's superior to Italian-style pizza.
