Pizza Today - November 2017 - 68

Aside from traditional toppings,
Miller says they experiment with
flavored salts, which can change
the flavor profile of any traditional
pizza. There's a habañero sea salt they
encourage people to try that adds a bit
of heat, and a truffle sea salt as well.
The restaurant burns apple
wood in its oven, and "our fire has

never gone out in the five years
that we've been open," Miller says.
"Someone comes in, even if we're
closed, every day and stokes the fire.
What we do at night is we build the
fire up really high so that it'll burn
until the next morning. It's caused a
couple of chimney fires, but nothing
too major." The temperature flares
to 900 F but can dip as low as 500 F
when the restaurant is at full capacity.
Wood is dropped into a chute and
stored in a cool, dry cellar below the
restaurant. The oven can fit anywhere
from five to 11 pizzas at one time
depending on the expertise of who's
running it. Pizzas bake in five to eight
minutes, but it's a tight fit in the area,
and employees must be skilled.
The restaurant offers a gluten-free
crust, but it is smaller than their
traditional pizza. "We do everything
on boards, so there's a lot of board
changing." Miller says. "When
someone comes in who is gluten-free
or has Celiac's, we'll ring a note into
the kitchen and we'll do a full wipe
down of everything, and we do let
people know that there is semolina
in our ovens, so there is going to be
some contamination, and that's just a
risk that we can't get around."
Fire Artisan offers wine and
16 beers on tap, with nine of

those rotating constantly. "All of our
rotating beers are Northwest

6 8 / P I Z Z AT O D AY. C O M / N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 7

specific," Miller says. "We usually
keep it (from) Washington, Oregon,
Montana (and) Idaho."
The same applies to the wines,
which they recently added a varietal
on tap. It does make it cheaper by the
glass, which is appreciated," Miller
says. "It also gives it a different flavor,
which is something a lot of people
don't think about. Sitting in a big
metal barrel, it's going to alter the
flavor a little bit, and I think that's
kind of interesting."
They offer a popular special that
includes a beer growler, a fill-up and
a pizza for $30, but the special also
encourages patrons to return for $12
return fill-ups -- and perhaps a pizza
while they're at it.
 

When Sun took over daily
operations of the Spokane location,
she changed a popular lunch special
from half a pizza and any salad to a
personal-sized pizza from a prepared
list of popular choices and a house
salad. The original special offered more
options for the customers, but it also
meant wasted product because halves
of pizzas were being tossed if no one
ordered the other half. "It was a lot to
keep up with," Miller says. "Now this
is much more straight-forward, and
it's not as expensive for us. It was a
loss when we were doing it before. We
were trying to get it to where we (are)
even or a little bit above now. Our top
pizzas are still on that list. Our salads
are just really tasty, so people were a
little bit bitter about that."
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Pizza Today - November 2017

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