Sunday 24 June 2007

Early and late

Early
When I mention to someone I have to be in at 8am...they usually go "You work at Pizza Hut though...who wants pizza at 8am!?" and I suppose it is understandable.

But we have to do quite a bit in the morning... Pan dough, it arrives frozen so it is put into pans - defrosts - proofs and then retards. We have a machine called an ADPR for this task. The A stands for automatic and well the rest I'm sure you can work out. Panning dough basically involves putting 11g of oil in the bottom, putting a frozen disc in, twisting it to remove any air bubbles and then 2 times round with spray release. Spray release is a glorified oil. We use trolleys to put the dough on. Each trolley can hold either 180 or 240 pizzas depending on how busy we are. We have 7 trolleys so can effectively have 1680 pizzas but we never do as the system isn't designed for that. We have a large quantity of pans and seperators. These are Pizza Hut branded (with the old Pizza Hut logo, not because we're old but they still make them with this logo). Quite a lot of the utentils are Pizza Hut's own including spoodles, rockers etc.

When the dough is ready we do pre-top. Which is making the pizzas in advance. HSR/RBD/FSR do not do this except for when they have buffets. We have speed rings which are plastic rings which sit on the dough so we get a brand standard crust. I did a search for an image of these but couldn't so I'll have to get one when I have a chance. I always think about getting pictures but forget. It isn't that exciting anyway. We use a spoodle a cross between a spoon and ladle to sauce. Then we use cups to get the measured amount of cheese on the base. Put the topping on, and we use a two finger space rule for each topping. If you're feeling generous you can on occasion put a piece of pepperoni on top of another and someone will get a treat. I don't do this very often!! We make pizzas in quite large batches and not individually.

Then put pizzas back in the walk-in fridge and they are cooked when required.

Late
Nothing to do with pizza to be honest but I found it quite funny.

On Sundays each store does a fire alarm test as well as the centre itself. They're all linked so when we test ours everyone else goes, but we have to test them one by one!!

We still have our shutter up, it is about 5.20pm and the last customer left about 10 minutes ago. Security check toilets etc but today they only have lady officers, so didn't check the mens.

Being a Sunday, we start the fire alarm test! Depending on the type of unit and type of alarm the system will do different things:

For example, our alarm when a sensor is activated goes to a 'standby message' on the tannoy for 1 minute then to evacuation. If we press a fire point it goes to evacuation straight away.

The alarm is going intermittently and on comes the voice
"Attention please. Attention please. An incident has been reported within the building, please wait for further instructions."

We like to test ours quite a lot because it annoys the hell out of centre management so leave it running.

A minute passes and the alarm goes constant and a REALLY loud voice (they have separate speakers for the alarm tannoy)

"ATTENTION. ATTENTION. PLEASE LEAVE THE BUILDING BY THE NEAREST ROUTE. ATTENTION ATTENTION EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY."

This happens every Sunday so employees know it is ok. But then from the toilets comes running this man looking really annoyed but then stops looking round at the empty place and notices that our shutter is now lowering because of the alarm, starts waving and then runs to the main doors. They're locked and he thinks he is going to burnt to death. Being a nice person I put the shutter back up and walk over to him (quite far actually) and tell him it is ok. He is going crazy though, kicking the doors, running into them, shaking them. I do wonder what he thinks he will achieve and whether I should retreat back to the Hut.

He sees me and asks
"Have you come to unlock this door, theres a fire!!!"
"No it's ok they do tests on a Sunday."
"Well I need to get out right now!"

They must have seen his antics on camera as two security officers arrived at the door and he was released. He got out and one of them went "What an idiot...he must have been on the toilet for 20 minutes!" I concurred, went back to Pizza Hut and drank an Orange & Peach Fruitshoot (new favourite drink).

18 comments:

Al said...

After reading this post I have reached two conclusions:

1. Pizza is harder to make than I imagined.

2. We need a fire alarm like yours.

Arriva Driver said...

8am!

Thats a sleep in... hehehe.

Heres me thinking all pizzas were made freshly by hand with some guy twirling the dough around and stuff.

Damn, dreams are crushed.

Pizza Hut Team Member said...

We don't have the time to hand make dough! Some stores have supplies so they can make special order dough (wheat free etc) but we do not.

For us it is pack of 11 discs, 12 packs in a box. The main reason behind frozen dough is time but also Brand Standards which is a big thing for Pizza Hut. Infact because I'm now a trainer I have to do a 'workshop' all about brand standards...how exciting I can't wait.

Anonymous said...

were having a party for a christmas party at school, and we were gonna order pizza, how early can we order? cause we get out at 12 :]
thankss :DD

Anonymous said...

Frozen dough tastes like dried dog shit and who knows where and under what conditions it is made by whomever? I remember at least one recall of frozen thin crust~
Fresh dough tastes better and has better quality control because you know who made it! Really, who makes it and do they have the same strict health department regulations found in most PIzza Hut stores?
I worked for Pizza Hut for 20 years, and left to go to Papa John's, where they use fresh dough, delivered in trays like Domino's pizza dough.

Unknown said...

Pizza hut sucks ass. It started when they stopped using fresh veggies...slowly one ingredient at a time... until now nothing is fresh about it. Its not about standards ..its about money.

Sorry Hut Warriors...your stuff sucks now.
You might as well have a frozen pizza from the supermarket.

Anonymous said...

This is funny, guys.. I've worked in both pizza hut and other stores.. not only is it not difficult to make the dough it's easy to store it as well he's glorifying it to make it sound difficult.

It only takes, for pizza hut..

A pan.
A pump bottle and oil.(1 to 2 squirts)

And finally it get's put in a fridge.

When it defrosts it's used.

How difficult... - -

On average we get maybe in a 12hour day 120orders..

Oh wow ... lol

When I worked at a place called Pizza Pazzaz so did they and they made there dough fresh every single morning.. from scratch..

For the next day of course.

Anyways what I'm trying to say is that it's another way to save money and time.. That's all pizza is trying to do.

prestonlewis said...

I've noticed that pizza hut dough is dry and doesn't taste right so I googled "pizza hut dough" and found this page which talks about frozen dough. Horrible. I worked for Pizza Hut for 20 years and all the dough was hand prepared, even in a high volume store like Myrtle Beach, SC during the summertime. "Time" was never an issue for us back then. Frozen dough really sucks and it's noticeable when you eat the pizza.

Anonymous said...

Pizza Hut will eventually be called Dominoes. (from Dan Hayward, a pizza hut insider.)

Anonymous said...

I work for pizza hut in tejas and we still have fresh veggies.

Anonymous said...

Fresh veggies as in green peppers pre cut arriving in the store in plastic bags? Fresh as in olives coming in bags precut? Fresh as in pineapple chunks coming in plastic bags just like what you get in a can? Onions presliced arriving in plastic bags? Nothing fresh about it. Our store was given a brand new oven, something very rare in pizza huts these days. Several hundreds of thousands for that oven just to cook a nothing fresh about it pizza.

Anonymous said...

I now realize why I was so disappointed in the Pizza Hut pizzas we got today. The crust is terrible. It looks too PERFECT with that round smooth crust. It was a pan pizza crust too. Back when they were made in the restaurant the pan pizza crust was crunchy and buttery and the pizza was really GOOD. We used to love it. The other comment I read was spot on by saying you can get that kind of pizza frozen in a box. PIZZA HUT I am so disappointed now that I know what is really going on. Seriously, a stack of frozen pizza crusts all ready for the cheese and bagged veggies. What??? Please bring back the original Pan Pizza that we loved. Where they molded that dough into the oiled black pans (I watched that once) and it came out all crispy and delicious. What you have done is HORRIBLE!

Anonymous said...

I worked at Pizza Hut 29 years ago; when ut was good and made fresh. I've read all the blogs, but the one that really got me was "we don't have time to make the dough". Bull. We used a Hobart back then that made the pan dough, and the flat dough. It also cut FRESH vegetables. Yes you had to cut and weigh the dough, yes you had to put 2 squirts of a buttery oil in each pan, and yes you had to proof them. On top of all that Personal Pan Pizza's had come out and they also needed proofed and fixed. Nothing frozen--handmade and guaranteed fresh. Times have changed, but things that work you don't mess with. Pizza Hut use to be #1, I don't know what it is now. but its embarrassing to know that at One time I worked for a USA company that was the best, now its crap. Theres no pride in how it tasts and especially how it looks--so sad. Nashville Tennessee


Anonymous said...

I worked at Pizza Hut 30 years ago. I worked there for five years as I went to college. Right before I started working there they switched from real ovens to conveyor belt ovens. Older crew members would tell us they never had hair on their right arms because it would get burnt off as they reached in to move the pizza's around with long paddles. How their hair got burnt was every once and a while their arm would touch the top of the oven and burn the hair off and of course their natural reaction was to jerk their arms downward touching the bottom of their arms burning off the hair on that side. LOL

As a new employee I was happy they switched to the conveyor belt ovens but as a consumer I can tell you the pizza didn't taste as good as with the old ovens.

As I worked there I could taste the quality of some of the ingredients go down. Pepperoni got cheaper the Italian sausage and other meats seem be getting cheaper and cheaper.

We still made all our dough fresh daily and cut all our own vegetables fresh daily. Cheese was pre-grated in boxes but was 100% real skim milk mozzarella cheese. Pizza sauce was made from cans of concentrated tomato paste that we added water to and a packet of seasoning all mixed together in big 5 gallon buckets. They had to sit for like 4 hours in the walk-in before we were supposed to use them so the seasoning could marinade.

Back then Pizza Hut was considered a restaurant not fast food. A waitress or waiter would greet you at the door and ask if you like to be seated in smoking or non-smoking. Then take you to your table and give you menus and ask what would you like to drink.

They go get you your drinks and then ask if you were ready to order and if so take your order. If you ordered salads they go immediately give you salad plates so you could go salad bar while your pizza was being cooked.

Then they bring out the pizza and serve the first slice to everyone at the table making sure to tell them that the pan was very hot. Then as you ate the waiter or waitress would stop by once and a while to see if you needed anything. At the end they box up any leftovers bring you the check and even let you pay at the table and bring you your change. They also bused their own tables no busboys. It was a real restaurant dinning experience at fast food prices.

By the time I left there were no more waiters or waitresses. They started putting less and less toppings and cheese and started cutting down on the food items they offered. When I started we just didn't make pizza. We has spaghetti and meatballs and three sandwiches. The meatball sandwiches were awesome. Does Pizza Hut still have beer on tap and wine?

Pizza Hut has got it all wrong. They went with cheaper on everything. Cheaper ingredients, cheaper on staff and cheaper on dining experience for short term gains. They should have stuck with good quality fresh ingredients made fresh on sight with a real wait staff for real dinning.

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Anonymous said...

We went to pizza hut tnight. We get our drinks. Buddy makes us sit and wait forever to order and than when we do place the order we sit and wait for 15 minutes just for him to come back and tell us they have no dough left and that we can inly order thin crust. We agree to it...... he comes back 3 mins katerto explain the bread sticks are made with the same dough and we ccan't have them.....

So we walked out. The a-hole than tells us to tweet our complaint on twitter.

Apparently the RETARDS are still 100% real.

Dominos legend said...

I like it in the bum😂😂😂dominos are the best

Unknown said...

If it's not frozen it's fresh ya twat