I absolutely love great pizza. The Ram has great pizza. When we made the decision to bring back pizza to our menus, a few years ago, the goals were to make a unique, craveable, tasty pizza that our guests would love and we could have fun with. I feel like not only have we accomplished what we set out to do, but we are continuing to build upon our success and grow our pizza brand.
In terms of the pizza itself, our desire for the base was a unique, crispy thin crust. With those attributes, our type of crust is often referred to as a “cracker crust”. To help achieve this profile, and induce our unique brand, we include Big Horn Hefeweizen beer and Big Red IPA spent grain in the recipe. In addition to adding a unique flavor profile, our beer makes the dough “livelier” and helps add the crispiness we expect.
When creating the recipe, we tested eight different cheese blends before choosing the low-moisture, whole milk mozzarella mix we use today. We also tested six different sauce combinations using Italian style Stanislaus tomatoes which harkened back to the founders’ original sauce recipe from 1971. Only the best quality toppings are placed on our pies such as cup-and-char pepperoni (appropriately named because….. it cups & chars) to Italian sausage.
Speed was a major consideration when developing our pizza recipe. So, choosing which oven to purchase to cook our pies in was critical. Hence the TurboChef ovens which grace your kitchens and cook a full-size pie in three minutes on average and a kid’s pizza in two minutes and forty seconds. Game on, that speed will Make ‘em Smile!
A couple more notes on our pizza. You will notice that our metal pizza pans are dimpled. This is to provide air circulation to the crust which keeps it crispy longer. Pizza is a great to-go item. It travels well and is tasty the next day. To add a final touch of character we endeavor to have fun with our pizza box art and change the design regularly.
We have featured a number of LTO pizzas such as: Breakfast Pizza, Chicken Bacon Ranch Pizza, Buffalo Chicken Pizza, Hot Honey, Margherita Pizza and the Cheeseburger Pizza twice now. The second time around for the Cheeseburger Pizza has been quite a success as it has become our best-seller overall in addition to our best-selling LTO pizza ever. It is a strong bet that the Cheeseburger Pizza will transition to our main menu. Aside from being a superior quality pie, I think we attribute our pizza success to factors as Graciously Hospitable sales teams, top-notch marketing and being on top of culinary trends.
So, what should the next LTO pizza be when BurgerRama ends? Please forward your ideas to the culinary team as soon as possible. Give them a high-five too for the awesome pizza they make.
Happy Birthday to: Joshua Tucker and Kristie Webb.
A heartfelt “thank you “ to the following team members who celebrate significant anniversaries with their Ramily in April: Scott Hull (9 years), Katherine Rosenthal (11 years), Darla Shamel (8 years), Collin McNees (14 years), Lindsey Liles (6 years), Taylor Hopper (6 years), Ramiro Mendiola Hernandez (12 years), Ricky Wilson (9 years), Carlos Gutierrez (11 years) and Alfonso Ruiz Garcia (13 years). Thank you for Making ‘em Smile!
“Ram Pizza make me belly happy!”
~ Jeff Iverson