"Judging by the regularity of My Pie Monday contributors and pizzamaking.com visitors, I'd say the spread is most likely much bigger, so we're being generous here."

Wait, so, today, with the wolf at the door, it appears as if we're valued, hobbyist, brothers in arms, raising our peels to the sky in a show of unity and strength. But tomorrow, THAT's when we go back to being circle jerking photograph judging pretenders. Is that about right? :)

You better be careful, Kenji. The way you're talking, it almost sounds like we're a community. At least, for today. :)

30 bucks a pound? Whoah. Can I get these on layaway?

I've never seen a new pizzeria open that didn't have some sort of oven related growing pains, regardless of how long they've had the oven in place. Neapolitan joints get a lot more leeway in this regard, because wood fired oven tending takes such an incredibly long time to truly master, but there's a considerable learning curve with this style as well.

I'm not in love with the bread reference (great pizza should never be bready) and a 600 deg. peak temp, for NY style pizza, isn't much of a selling point, but I'm willing to give them time. On the plus side, the paleness on the undercrust points to a relatively balanced bake- if not a little top heavy, which, for this kind of oven, is encouraging. If they ever decide to mod the thermostat and push the oven to 650, this could get pretty magical.

That's right, Mal, I'm an armchair quarterback who can't tell from this photo that the completely incinerated pizza reveals a brutally obvious heat imbalance.

http://slice.seriouseats.com/images/2013/02/20130202-the-forge-7.jpg

This photo tells us absolutely nothing. Why would I ever think something was wrong here? I jumped to a conclusion that I had no right jumping to. It looks burnt beyond all recognition, but who the hell am I to judge? Fuck my decades of thermodynamic research. I will make sure to never comment on a pizza photo again, because pizza can only be judged by taste.

Thanks, I'm glad we agree :) A couple decades of thermodynamics research doesn't hurt either. Jeff has world class skills, but skills can't trump science. He can't snap his fingers and make an imbalanced oven act like a balanced one.

"Friends don't let friends open pizzerias with Valoriani ovens, lol."

LOL

I think, between the whole wheat and the malted flour/caputo blend, they're obviously doing something very different. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and chalk up that undercrust as a growing pain.

This being said, going from selling pizzas on the street to partnering on a brick & mortar is a gargantuan step. I have tremendous faith that Jeff is destined to do more great things, but, like I said in an earlier discussion, I don't foresee Forge matching the ethereal quality of his previous work. Forge may work through what could be typical new pizzeria growing pains and put out great pies, but they won't be pizzahacker pies. With the countless hours of tinkering Jeff has done with his pizzaforge setup, and the thermodynamics knowledge he has to have amassed, I can only assume that the Valoriani decision was his partner's and not his. Hopefully this undertaking will make him enough money so that he can venture out on his own. The world definitely deserves a true pizzahacker brick & mortar.

Hey Paulie, can we settle up on that wager now? How about payment in the form of pizza? ;)

While I'm ecstatic to see Paulie getting some well deserved recognition, the NY style side of this list is pretty abysmal, imo.

Steve's in Miami?! This

http://newyork.grubstreet.com/2013/02/the-best-pizza-in-america.html#photo=54x00037

gets a mention over New Park and Pizza Town? Even Best, which I feel has seen better days, is better than that.

@Scott569, that's definitely arugula. Arugula and some basil.

So, Jay Jerrier's going to do NY style? I wish him well.

@RobC_ LOL

If it's business in the front and party in the back, I can only assume that the back is ordering the pizza.

"It is a big green egg with an open door on the front. It is a wood fired LBE. It is a wood fired MPO. It is a wood fired Two Stone. It is a wood fired Brick Oven Box."

Jeff, the unique component of this device is that rather than being an insert to an existing piece of equipment (MPO, BOB) or a method of adding components to an existing piece of equipment to make it pizza friendly (LBE, BGE), it's an actual piece of equipment engineered for pizza. A 2stone inferno is a portable gas fired pizza oven and that too is engineered specifically for pizza, but this is a portable wood fired pizza oven. I wouldn't necessarily call this a wood 2stone, since the fuel component is pretty intrinsic to the engineering. The concept is unique.

"Can there be a market for something in the middle? With better looks, easier to use, that can bake a pizza in 2 minutes?"

Neapolitan is the belle of the ball. If people are shopping for pizza devices, that's the feature they're looking for. Some people might consider 2 minutes to be Neapolitan, but it's not firmly in the parameter. Anyone looking for Neapolitan in a device like this will want as much baking time leeway as possible. Regardless of how many people might feel 2 minutes is Neapolitan, as you move up from that, you both lose any Neapolitan definition, Neapolitan features and, frankly, good eating qualities, until you hit NY at 3 and 4.

If you're buying a piece of equipment to make Neapolitan pizza, you're going to buy a device that will comfortably hit those times, not one that will come extremely close. If you're buying a device for NY, the market is saturated. Unless you can do $100 for something that will give you a 4 minute bake outdoors. That hasn't been achieved.

"Helps to have Colombo backing."

So you're telling me that the hordes of people fighting over seats in L&B during almost every moment of the day are there because they're afraid of getting their kneecaps busted? Or does the place have lines out the door because the pizza is consistently great?

@Chris E.Crowley, if you really think this is just my own opinion, you haven't read much of this site lately. 'Great' hasn't been used as a descriptor for Totonno's for a long time. Even it's most diehard fans are throwing around prevaricating terms like 'still pretty good' and 'brings back memories.'

If you want Totonno's to always be around for nostalgic reasons, I'm all for it. It's a huge historical player. Lombardi's stopped being a viable pizzeria years ago and is now just a museum, so why not add Totonno's to that list as well? But 'Church of Pizza?' I worship pizza as it tastes this very moment. You can't eat history.

Totonno's opened February 2010 until Sandy hit in late October 2012. That's 20 months. Regardless of how long they were closed for before that, a NY pizzeria making truly great pizza in an area like Coney Island should have absolutely no problem paying back a loan like this. For great pizzerias, $200K is a drop in the bucket.

There's nothing crass about Darwinism. It's not pleasant. It's not happy. But it isn't crass. When the lion takes out the slowest gazelle, the other gazelles don't recoil in horror and say "oh, that's crass." It's survival of the fittest. And Totonno's stopped being fit a while ago.

Not to belittle the tragic impact Sandy had on our area, nor am I making light of Totonno's devastating 2009 fire, but, any pizzeria with this level of national acclaim and historical significance that can't pay back a $200K loan in 3 years shouldn't be open.

Making good pizza is like printing money. The fact that they're having money problems only further confirms the drop in quality that many contributors here have recognized.

And this "it's not a business, it's a passion" garbage? Give me a break. Do you really think that it's not a passion for Paulie Gee? Do you really think Paulie would EVER have trouble paying back loans?

Make good pizza and these kinds of problems evaporate.