Peerless helps bring classic, old-fashioned hand-tossed New Jersey shore-style pizza to the heart of Texas with the help of their compact, workhorse 2348P pizza deck oven
In February 2014, Paul Serraino opened the doors of his new pizzeria, Jersey Giant Pizza. His goal was a simple, but tasty one: bring traditional, hand-tossed New Jersey-style pizza to Texas. And with the help of his new Peerless 2348P, Serraino was able to do just that.
Jersey Giant Pizza sells classic 20-inch pizzas made from the finest of ingredients, Serraino said. His dough is made from scratch, and the toppings include Mama’s fresh baked meatballs, fennel infused Italian sausage and Wisconsin mozzarella. He also uses organic vegetables from local farms.
“It’s east coast style pizza,” Serraino said. “Many of our customers have told us we’ve brought back their memories of the good old days along the Jersey shore. Those pizzas have generally been larger than regular pies, and the folks here seem to really enjoy that.”
And when it was time to pick an oven to bake those large pies in, Serraino went with a Peerless.
“We were looking at a used Baker’s Pride deck oven, but we didn’t want to go with a used piece of equipment,” he said. “The Peerless model was just what we were looking for. It’s a multi-deck oven and we can easily cook two 20-inch pies in each deck without having an oven that takes up a lot of space.”
Since Jersey Giant opened, Serraino said he’s put the oven through its paces — and with great results.
“We’ve definitely challenged this oven,” Serraino said. “We tried to find its stress point to see just what it could do. There have already been a couple of Fridays where we’ve just said ‘wow.’ All four decks heat up in the appropriate amount of time, and everything cooks evenly. This oven can definitely handle the capacity of what we’re trying to do with it. We use the propane model, and so far it’s been very economical. We’re not breaking the bank with our propane costs.”
Serraino said he was also happy with how the oven’s compact size allows him to use the rest of his kitchen for other things.
“There aren’t a lot of ovens out there that can do what the Peerless does in this kind of space,” he said. “It’s got a good footprint and doesn’t take up all of our space. I remember when we moved it in, we were able to just remove the deck doors and get it through a regular commercial door. It just squeezed through, but I don’t think we could have done that with the other ovens we had considered.”
In Serraino’s eyes, his Peerless 2348P has been able to allow Jersey Giant to fulfill their mission as stated on their website: Inspired by our family tradition of passionately operating New Jersey Pizzerias, our Mission is to share the classic old-world flavor that made our pizzas incredibly popular throughout history.
“That’s what we’re trying to do here,” Serraino said. “And the oven has done what we’ve needed it to do. I would compare it to the standard Baker’s Pride models, the single deck pizzeria models, maybe the double decks. The Peerless is definitely an economical alternative, and it’s held up quite well for us.”
Jersey Giant Pizza
Paul Serraino, Owner
13908 W. Highway 71
Bee Cave, Texas 78738
(512) 263-3535