Pizza?

I saw something last week and I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.

I've never liked pizza screens. Lots of places use them but I believe their main purpose is to take some pizza making skill out of the recipe. Since the dough isn't actually on the floor of the oven, the bottom of the pizza is cooked at a lower temperature and I believe that impacts the quality of the crust. Plus, the screen leaves unattractive hash marks on the bottom of the crust, but that's less important.

I also know there are a lot of places out there that do not make their own dough. They either buy dough or par baked shells. I wouldn't have guessed that this is a big market, but I'm told I'd be surprised by how big it is. It doesn't really make sense to me because I would have thought most of the profit from a pizza would come from making the dough yourself. Flour, water and yeast are cheap.

On to what I saw...there was a gas fired dome oven. A worker was taking tortillas out of a plastic bag and placing them on a screen. The tortilla was topped and it was slid into the oven. When it was cooked, it was sliced Chicago thin style into small pieces - 9 square-ish pieces.

I didn't take any pictures or taste the tortilla pizza although I did get a pretty good look at one and skipped the piece that was offered to me from another.

Out of curiosity, I looked at the YELP reviews to see what other people thought.

Here's an oven picture from the owner. The photo caption says, "Enjoy fresh baked pizza from our authentic Wood Stone oven." Looks nice enough.

This one is from Isabella S. The caption is "'Margherita pizza' WTF????"

And another photo from Isabella S. The caption is "Thin as a tortilla."

After some service bugs, Nancy S. said the pizza "was disappointing as well. It was paper thin, almost like tortilla shell, and lacked depth and flavor." Now on the other hand, Scott S thought the "wood fired pizza was very fresh, with aromas of garlic and basil predominant. The sausage was spicy, but not overly so."

I believe this is a used, similar model of oven on Ebay. It might actually be a little bigger than the one I saw. The asking price is just under $17,000. No idea if the oven I saw was new, but I've got to believe buying that oven cost a minimum of 15 grand.

Probably cost significantly more than that delivered and installed.

It's being used as a very expensive toaster oven for tortilla pizza.

I can't wrap my head around that.