Pizza Oven Size and Throughput

How many pizzas can you put in a wood-fired oven at a time? How many pizzas can you make per hour?

This is useful information whether you operate a restaurant or throw parties for friends and family. In general, throughput is based on concurrent places in the oven and the number of pizzas you can bake in each place per hour. I think it is fair to say that there is a theoretical throughput, as well as a practical throughput rate. For a mainstream 56″ commercial oven, you get the following:

The oven can hold ten 11″ pizzas at a time, with each position capable of baking up to 30 pizzas per hour, assuming a two minute bake time — yielding a theoretical throughput of 300 pizzas per hour. With a four hour dinner service running from 5PM to 9PM, that is a theoretical 1,200 pizza. Of course your mileage might vary. Here is the layout for a 56″ commercial pizza oven:

From a practical practical perspective, assuming that each position capable of producing 10 pizzas per hour, or one every six minutes, you can calculate a throughput of 100 pizzas per hour.

It is also worth noting that these are throughput limitations that are imposed by the size and speed of the oven; not limitations determined by the size and speed of your pizza making team.