Pizza Today - February 2019 - 53

"We really have tried everything as far as
how we top the pizzas, how we dress the
pizzas -- everything has been tried here.
And we've changed things along the way.
We were using shredded mozzarella for a
while and we were doing sauce first. That's
probably the pizzas you've tried. And it was
really delicious that way and really great. I
started making some pies where I'd get in a
brick of mozzarella. ... It's kind of a Jersey/
Connecticut style on how to dress the pizza
is to put the cheese down first. We started
to experiment with that and decided to
switch over because we all really liked it
and thought it tasted better.
"I knew I wanted to do a Poolish starter
with a pre-ferment and then finish the
dough 14 hours later. (He even went so
far as to test the dough on his home grill
at night.) The only thing we do that's
different than a lot of people is I put some
apple cider vinegar in the dough to kind
of help relax the dough a little bit more. If
there was any 'tang', that would be good.
But most of the tang is from the preferment."
He admits they don't measure
ingredients, although they should. "We
measure every other way," Habetz says.
Habetz and his crew got friends in the

restaurant to blind test as many kinds of
mozzarella as they could get their hands
on and ended up with a non-traditional
Wisconsin offering that set their pizza
apart from their competitors. They also use
Pecorino and Romano to create unique
flavor profiles. "All the pies I grew up loving
were made with Pecorino," Habetz says.
The electric deck ovens bake in five to
eight minutes, and the pizzaiolos use a puff
of air to keep the dough from sticking to
the floor of the oven.
Cast iron pizzas are also available,
modeled after the Greek-style pizzas he
had in Connecticut. "Everyone around the
country has some sort of pan pie, whether
it's Little Caesar's or something really
great," Habetz says.
Some sandwiches and pasta dishes like
eggplant Parmesan round out the menu. "I
knew there were those people who wanted
those classics," Habetz says. Since the fire,
they've streamlined their menu to what
sold the most. "Everything that was the
most labor intensive was selling the least,"
he says.
Aside from its regular menu are novelty
items like alcoholic slushy machines
and an ice cream machine with eight
syrups that give them a leg up from their

competition (Tuesdays are free ice cream
day). They rotate frozen drink offerings
about weekly in two of the four machines,
with margaritas and piña coladas always
available. Slices are offered, but are reheated
behind the bar, leaving the kitchen free for
whole pies.
Delivery is available through third-party
companies, giving employees the chance
to focus on what's in house -- or even
outside, where they cultivate many of their
own ingredients in a backyard garden that
smells divinely of basil.
THOUGH THE COMPANY'S
SECOND UNIT WAS HIGHLY
ANTICIPATED, HABETZ AND
COMPANY TOOK THEIR TIME
GETTING IT JUST RIGHT. The
store opened last summer in what had
been Habetz's former sandwich shop
in Portland's Buckman neighborhood.
It seems not even a fire can slow the
Pizza Jerk team down, and that just gives
Portland one more leg in up the pizza
game.

F E B R UA R Y 2 0 1 9 / P I Z Z AT O D AY. C O M / 5 3
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Pizza Today - February 2019

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