Making pizza a big seller on the menu
/Pizzas have long been a popular drawcard at The Ary Toukley, a busy registered club on the NSW Central Coast. So much so that as part of the club’s upcoming renovations, a dedicated pizza outlet is set to be installed in one of the outdoor areas.
The Ary toukley executive chef richard wagemaker
“Pizzas are a big seller on the menu,” affirms Executive Chef Richard Wagemaker, who in his three years at the club has overseen a revamp of its food offerings. “On specials day pizza is frequently the number one food – Anzac Day is our biggest day for pizza, it’s become something of a tradition for locals to come here for a beer and pizza – so we’ve decided to put in a new outdoor seating area with pizza outlet. Currently we cook our pizzas in a Moretti deck oven but we’ll be installing a dedicated woodfired oven as part of the renovations.”
Richard’s parents owned a pizzeria when he was growing up, so pizza has always been close to his heart. His philosophy is a good quality pizza needs quality ingredients from the base up. “People often misjudge pizza – they think you can just put it on and people will buy it, and they try to maximise their margin by going with cheaper ingredients. But my view is you should use the best products you can get your hands on.”
Richard makes his own pizza bases using a mix of wholemeal and white flour which gives extra flavour. “I rest the dough for 48 hours and do a slow fermentation because that helps digestion – you don’t feel bloated when you eat it. We hand stretch it and we get a great result. We formerly used Italian flour but about two years ago we changed to Ben Furney Flour which is from the NSW wheat belt and we’ve been very happy with it. The quality is good and we’re pleased to be able to support a local producer.”
Catering for as broad a taste as possible
The club currently sells around six to seven hundred pizzas a week from its Ziva Eats & Pizza outlet, with ten varieties on the menu. Richard describes his approach as “classic thin crust pizza – I originally tried to push into the very traditional pizza style but we had to adjust it a bit as we found it wasn’t quite what our customers wanted. We find some people want more of an American style, fully loaded with everything on top, and others prefer a nice thin margarita with tomato and mozzarella, so we try to cater for as broad a taste as possible.”
“In my opinion there’s nothing better than pizza – as long as it’s well done!”
Among the most popular sellers are pepperoni with aged salami, BBQ meat lovers, the supreme and the chicken supreme. “Our Supreme has everything on top with barbecue sauce so it’s probably the best of all worlds. We also have a very popular prawn and chorizo pizza – I did try to put a Australian marinara pizza on the menu but it didn’t take off, the same with calamari so we stick to the prawns because our customers really like them.”
pizza is a mainstay of the ary toukley menu
Richard refreshes the menu every three months and is looking forward to expanding it further once the new woodfired oven goes in. He attributes pizza’s popularity to the fact that it’s “easy eating – it’s great to share, it’s reasonably priced and the value perception is strong. In my opinion there’s nothing better than pizza – as long as it’s well done!”
‘One thing, made well’ pays off for Soldiers Pizza
At neighbourhood pizza restaurant and takeaway Soldiers Pizza in the leafy Ballarat suburb of Soldiers Hill, business partners Todd Sainty and Jeremy Ellard pride themselves on “one thing, made well” – there is no pasta on the menu here, in fact no mains other than pizzas, complemented with sides of pear and goats cheese salad, red rock olives, and garlic and cheese or prawn and chilli loaf. A couple of dessert pizzas and gelato round the menu off.
The business was opened in 2021 by Todd and his former business partner Justin Kroussoratis – “We had one full week of trading before Covid hit, which meant we immediately had to rethink our business model,” Todd remembers. “Originally we were going to be primarily dine-in with limited takeaway but we were able to quickly pivot – luckily we have a side window which opens onto the kitchen and we were able to use that to take takeaway orders and pass out pizzas, so we stocked up on pizza boxes and we were able to stay in business!”
Todd came to foodservice after 26 years in the motor industry. “Justin and I had sold the dealership and were wondering what to do next, and he said why don’t we start a restaurant? I’ve never met a person who doesn’t like pizza and we knew we had to keep it simple because we’re not chefs.”
Having secured a suitable corner site – a former café which the partners had to gut, before putting in their own prep area and woodfired oven – Todd set himself the task of learning the art of pizzamaking from the ground up.
“I had a friend down the coast who has a pizza place, so I approached him and said I wanted to learn the business. He laughed and said ‘You can’t do it in two minutes!’ So I went down there for eight weeks over Christmas and worked 10 hours a day, seven days a week for free. It was a crash course in pizzamaking!”
With their opening coinciding with lockdown, Todd says the first 6-12 months were a massive slog – “It was the hardest I’ve ever worked. I’d run a car dealership with 140 staff and this was so much harder – not only doing the massive hours, but because we were new at the craft you’d get home and start reading customer feedback, you’d do research on pizza recipes and styles. It was character building, that’s for sure!”
Justin left the business soon after startup and Jeremy, an old school friend of Todd’s and former baker with Coles, came on board some eight months later. “I’d call in after work to have a coffee and a chat with Todd,” Jem recalls, “and that led to my getting involved in the business.”
“We want people to be able to taste every ingredient”
‘Less is more’ approach to pizza topping
Jem’s baking background has been put to good use in refining the recipe for Soldiers’ pizza bases. “We tried a few yeasts to salt ratios and in the end we found the right mix. We like it to be three to four days old for the best result – after three days the yeast has finished its work and that’s important.
“We have customers tell us they’ve never before eaten a pizza and not felt bloated afterwards until eating ours. That’s because if you have a pizza with one day old yeast, as soon as it hits your tummy that yeast is going to keep growing and expanding.”
Todd and Jem have gone for a lighter style thin crust pizza – “We wanted to be different from the competition and we felt Ballarat is big enough to have a variety of pizza styles,” Todd says. “When we opened we had no idea the business would be what it is today – we’ve had steady growth every year. We support local producers as much as we can – smallgoods, vegies – and we try to use the best quality we can possibly get.”
They take a ‘less is more’ approach to the toppings, with Todd emphasising: “We want people to be able to taste every ingredient. We’ve never tried to be anything else – we knew from day one that our pizza might not be for everyone, because some people want the old loaded-up style whereas our focus is on quality and flavour.”
New pizza recipes are trialled on the specials board and among staff, with those which sell well eventually added to the regular menu. “We put in a lot of research with the initial menu, looking up woodfired pizza recipes and menus from all over and just getting ideas,” Todd recollects.
“We had one customer who kept on asking for prawns on his garlic loaf, so we tried it one night and it was just magnificent!”
The most popular are the Soldiers – shaved ham, hot sopressa salami, onion, capsicum, olives, mushrooms with house made Napolitana and mozzarella – and New Yorker – hot sopressa salami topped with chilli. A big seller on the sides menu is Prawn and Garlic Loaf with chilli, parmesan and parsley which came about via a customer suggestion – “we had one customer who kept on asking for prawns on his garlic loaf, so we tried it one night and it was just magnificent! Now it’s very popular.”
Business is a family affair
More recently the business has invested in back of house renovations, installing a new Forno woodfired oven. “We had problems with the old oven because we’d be doing up to 300 pizzas in three hours and the pizza was cooking but the bases weren’t. With this new oven we can cook six or seven pizzas in one minute and we have consistent heat.
“It was a big investment for us, up to $70,000 but it’s paid off and it’s the best thing we’ve ever done,” Jem adds. “We used to get anxiety during busy times that the oven was going to go cold but we don’t have to worry about that now. We have lots of regulars every week so consistency is really important.”
The business has put down strong roots in the local community and is very much a family affair – Todd’s wife Sue serves customers and their two boys both had their first jobs there. Jem’s three kids are all currently working in the business.
“When we opened we had six staff and now we’re up to 28,” Todd says. “We hire them at 15-16 and it’s very rewarding to watch them grow – they come in with little or no appreciation of food, some of them had never eaten an olive or an anchovy before, but when they leave they’ve got a passion for it. We look after them like they’re our own kids – I always say to them, if you learn this right you’ll be able to get a job anywhere in the world.”
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