Strive These Inventive Specialty Pizza Concepts for Nationwide Pizza Month

• Nationwide Pizza Month is the right time to roll out and test-drive some new specialty pizza choices in your restaurant.
• Take into consideration loopy topping concepts or discover new types, like Detroit-style and Chicago’s well-known stuffed-crust feast.

Associated: 9 enjoyable, straightforward promotions for Nationwide Pizza Month 2022

By Mark Plumlee

It’s not simply pie within the sky—October is Nationwide Pizza Month, and that creates a chance for pizzeria operators and their culinary groups to get inventive within the kitchen. You would possibly even come across some new recipes that might make it onto the everlasting menu.

As a brand new 12 months approaches, Nationwide Pizza Month is an efficient time to take a better take a look at your pizza menu and determine what’s making you cash and what’s simply taking on house. Including specialty pizzas can assist appeal to new clients, earn social media mentions, and probably improve gross sales. Hold studying for some wow-worthy concepts for inventive pizzas so as to add to your menu!

Inventive Toppings
One of many best methods to uplevel your pizza choices? Sudden toppings. In addition to the classics like cheese, pepperoni, sausage and peppers, contemplate including some crazier topping choices to the combination. Listed below are simply 4 concepts for offbeat toppings that truly work:

• Clams: Clams on pizza would possibly sound unusual to some people, however clients clamor for bivalve-topped pies from New Haven’s Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana. Their white clam pie, which additionally options mozzarella, garlic, oregano and olive oil, is the stuff of legend. In 2020, it was even named the perfect pizza within the U.S.
• Common Tso’s Hen: Pizza or Chinese language takeout? Why determine? Lakeville, Massachusetts eatery Baldies Craft Pizzeria presents a preferred gourmand pizza referred to as “The Common Tso,” made with Common Tso sauce, fried rooster, broccoli and roasted purple peppers.
• Candy Potatoes: Candy potatoes aren’t only for Thanksgiving casseroles. At Federal Pizza in Phoenix, it’s a prime-time pizza topping when paired with ricotta, sage and chives.
• Edible Glitter: Sure, you learn that proper. All that glitters can be gold should you comply with the instance of DagWoods in Santa Monica, California. DagWood’s signature pie will get sprinkled with unicorn-style edible glitter in a rainbow palette. The eatery debuted the pizza, referred to as the Magical AF, throughout LGBTQ Satisfaction Month in 2018, and it’s been the topic of numerous social media posts from influencers and on a regular basis friends alike ever since.

Want extra off-the-wall pizza topping concepts? Right here’s an inventory of seven loopy pizza topping concepts, like crickets, edible flowers and black-eyed peas.

Breakfast Pizzas
Pizza for breakfast is nice. However then once more, so are bacon and eggs. Breakfast pizza is the perfect of each worlds. It may be served as a specialty brunch merchandise or as an all-day menu merchandise. At Philadelphia’s Uncle Oogie’s Pizza, breakfast pizzas make up a complete part of the menu. Diners can select from a fundamental egg-and-cheese pie, a Western omelet-inspired selection, or a meaty tour de pressure referred to as the Junkyard Canine Breakfast Pizza—a sq. pie with bacon, sausage, pork roll, ham, eggs and American cheese.

Pitza
How a few private pizza made on pita bread? It’s a factor, and it’s one of many greatest attracts at fashionable NYC eatery Moustache. Prospects can get piping-hot pitas topped with conventional pizza toppings or varieties with a Center Jap aptitude, just like the Lahambajin, a scrumptious, spiced ground-lamb pie with onion and parsley, or the Kishik Pitza, which is topped with scallions, tomatoes, purple bell peppers, chilis, cilantro and sun-dried yogurt.

Detroit-Fashion Pizza
This pizza type has caught hearth across the nation, and it actually is kind of spectacular. Kind of a deep-dish pie however not fairly, it’s a sq. pizza baked in seasoned rectangular pans with a crispy, caramelized crust and stripes of sauce ladled on prime of the Wisconsin brick cheese and toppings. The type has taken off outdoors of the Motor Metropolis—as of late, Detroit-style pizza may be discovered at eating places like Lions & Tigers & Squares in New York Metropolis and MOTO in Seattle, to not point out PMQ’s current cowl star, Sq. Pie Guys in San Francisco and Oakland.

Sq. Pie Guys: Hip to be Sq.

Pizza Cake
You’ve heard of pizza pie—how about pizza cake? First popularized within the blogosphere a number of years in the past, a pizza cake consists with stacked layers of pizza dough, cheese, sauce and pepperoni. Your entire stack is encircled with extra dough so it stays put whereas baking. Slice into it, and it appears to be like like a layer cake, however the taste is pure pizza perfection. One factor’s for certain: It is a cake your clients received’t neglect any time quickly!

Pizza Cones
Right here’s one other intelligent strategy to serve pizza that’s good for to-go orders. A pizza cone is simply what it appears like: your whole favourite pizza toppings, sauce and cheese baked right into a portion of dough that’s long-established right into a cone. What’s to not love? They’re ooey, gooey and no utensils wanted! Plus, they’re insanely photogenic, making them an ideal contender on your advertising and marketing supplies, similar to flyers and social media posts.

Stuffed-Crust Pizza
One in all Chicago’s three distinctive types, stuffed-crust pizza revolutionized the world of pizza when it made its debut at Giordano’s in 1974 (though it was most likely invented by Rocco Palese, cofounder of Nancy’s Pizzeria, additionally within the Windy Metropolis). It’s a featured attraction at Chicago joints like Angelo’s Stuffed Pizza and Doreen’s Pizzeria. Stuffing a pizza crust is so simple as stretching the crust a bit additional than standard, then rolling it over some mozzarella, which then melts within the oven. Who may resist all that gooey cheese?

Dessert Pizza
Certain, some enterprising eating places have been identified to drop desserts proper on prime of a standard pizza. Nonetheless, for a extra palatable dessert variation, contemplate assembling pizzas solely out of candy substances. For example, bananas foster pizza made with a caramelly rum-and-banana topping would definitely make for a pleasant dessert slice! For extra concepts, take a look at this nice dessert pizza roundup.

Associated recipe: Pizza Siciliano with Nutella

Any manner you slice it, Nationwide Pizza Month is the right time to improve your restaurant’s pizza choices. Take into account attempting out a few of these inventive pizzas to rejoice the business’s greatest month. However keep in mind, these concepts are just the start—the sky’s the restrict relating to dreaming up inventive pies!

Mark Plumlee is a contract author whose articles have been printed in Full Service Restaurant, Trendy Restaurant Administration, Fast Service Restaurant, Hospitality Tech, That Oregon Life, The San Francisco Examiner, Blazersedge and different blogs. As a copywriter, he has helped eating places and small companies develop and outline their model for greater than 5 years.