Pizza King: A Stone Bake That Helps Stores Work Smarter

With approximately 70 locations across Indiana, Pizza King knows that a great pizza has to be repeatable. For its partner stores, that means delivering the quality customers expect while keeping service moving during busy hours.

Some locations were using deck ovens and facing familiar challenges: experienced pizza cooks were hard to find, new employees took time to train, and inconsistent baking could lead to wasted food. During peak periods, oven capacity could also slow down orders.

Starting in 2020, select Pizza King locations replaced their deck ovens with Hot Rocks stone conveyor ovens. Depending on the space available, stores chose either the Classic 70-33 or the more compact Volcano 40-33. Both gave their teams a simpler baking process while preserving the authentic stone bake Pizza King wanted to serve.

For the stores using Hot Rocks, the operational gains added up:

• Less labor pressure: A simpler baking process reduced the need for highly specialized pizza cooks, with estimated labor savings of $10,000 per year.
• Easier training: New employees could become productive faster. Reduced turnover and training costs were estimated at $5,000 per year.
• Less food waste: More consistent baking meant fewer mistakes, re-fires, and forgotten pizzas, for an estimated $15,000 in annual food cost savings.
• More capacity when it counts: The ovens could keep up with larger product loads, helping stores shorten waits and capture more orders. Pizza King estimated $7,000 in additional annual sales revenue.

Together, those savings and additional sales represent an estimated annual financial impact of $37,000 per restaurant, based on data from Pizza King locations using Hot Rocks. For a double stack oven, the estimated payback period was 17 months.

For Pizza King, the value goes beyond a faster bake. A more consistent, easier-to-run kitchen helps its partner stores protect pizza quality while serving more customers.