Pizzeria equipment: where to spend and what to buy used
Three purchases decide what your pizza is like: the oven, the mixer and the refrigeration. Almost everything else can be bought used, imperfect, and replaced later without a single customer noticing. Spend where the pie is decided and save everywhere else.
The oven
The most consequential purchase, and the one where the spec sheet misleads the most. Peak temperature is easy to advertise; recovery under load is what you actually live with at 8 p.m. on a Saturday, and it depends on deck thickness and burner or element layout far more than on the number on the dial.
| Oven type | Typical bake | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Electric deck | Around 550 °F | Consistency, small teams, New York and Sicilian-style pies |
| Gas deck | Around 550–650 °F | The classic American slice shop, volume with a stable product |
| Gas or wood dome | 750–900 °F | Neapolitan pies in 60–90 seconds, trucks and trailers |
| Wood-fired, built in | 800–900 °F | The room as much as the pizza |
| Conveyor | Set by belt speed | High volume, newer staff, a uniform product |
Headline prices rarely include the hood, fire suppression, gas line, electrical work or permits. Get three installed quotes.
Ask any supplier one question before anything else: what is the deck temperature after six pies in ten minutes? Wood, gas or electric, compared properly.
Budget for what sits above the oven, too. A commercial cooking line needs a hood and fire suppression that your fire marshal and health department will both inspect, and on a new build-out that can cost as much as the oven.
The mixer
Undersized more often than any other item. A countertop stand mixer will not handle 40 pounds of dough at 60% hydration, and trying will burn it out within a year.
- Spiral: the default for pizza. Develops gluten without heating the dough much, and handles stiff dough at volume.
- Fork: gentler and slower, excellent for long-fermented doughs, and a specialist purchase most shops don’t need.
- Planetary: the familiar 20- or 60-quart mixer found in most American kitchens. Versatile, but the wrong shape for stiff dough at volume. Fine if you also make desserts and sauces.
The cooler
The least glamorous purchase and the most underestimated. If you cold-ferment, the reach-in or walk-in is not storage, it is process equipment, and it has to hold 41 °F or below with the door opening all through service.
A dough cooler sized for the dough boxes you actually use is worth more than a bigger general-purpose one. Keep a thermometer inside rather than trusting the display; your health inspector will check it too.
What to buy used, happily
- Stainless work tables, shelving and sinks. They don’t wear out. Never buy these new.
- Pizza prep tables, if the compressor has been serviced recently.
- Peels, screens, pans, dough boxes and small wares. Consumables anyway.
- Dough sheeters and rollers, if you use one at all; most Neapolitan kitchens shouldn’t.
Before you buy anything, used or new, ask your health department what its plan review requires. Many expect commercial equipment certified to a sanitation standard such as NSF/ANSI, and a bargain that fails plan review is no bargain.
What not to buy used
- Any gas appliance nobody has checked. Make the sale conditional on a licensed gas fitter inspecting it, and on propane certification if it is going in a truck or trailer.
- Refrigeration with no service history. A failing compressor costs more than the discount.
- An oven you haven’t seen run. Insist on watching it reach temperature and hold it.
A sensible order of spending
- Oven, with its hood and suppression. It decides the product.
- Mixer, sized for your busiest day rather than your average one.
- Refrigeration that holds 41 °F through a rush.
- Everything else, used.
Put your own numbers into the budget estimator. It is written for a truck, but the equipment lines apply to a storefront too.