Adam, I don't know how much episodes you're planning about the pizza place, but please make a lot of them and you can make one of every detail. I love learning about things you found out while testing, what works an what didn't and why.
I second this suggestion. I also like seeing the behind-the-scenes of running a restaurant business, so not just the cooking, but the tools, equipment, & preparations.
adam has one of the best analytical minds i've seen in the foodtube universe, so it's great to see him doing a bunch of trial-and-error to refine a unique saleable product. most of the world's great food emerges from millions of repetitions, so i'm hoping he keeps trying different things for a long time
I used to work with one of those convayer ovens. I was actually responsible for cleaning it once a week. got the assembly of the bottom rack wrong once. Whole thing broke down $17k machine at the time, I was mortified. Turns out I just blew a 5 dollar fuse. That got replaced, ran it in reverse, reset the rack, and we were back to making pizza after a 10 minuite heatup. Scared the HELL outta me for my lifelyhood though
@@Ohyoucaughtme The dichotomy of Business, apparently. "I make sure this oven is properly working and cleaned every week!" (I worked at a cookie place once, actually cleaning was about a once in every week kind of thing, so not totally unreasonable) vs "Yeah the last time I got this oven checked by a professional was when I bought it in 94" 🤣
I used to work with a conveyor oven too, but it was multi levels, and you had to be really quick and go from one end of the oven to the other and make sure the pizzas didnt fall on the floor. And then it would keep getting faster!
The engineering of protection systems like that 5 dollar fuse saving you from damaging a very expensive system or expensive components within the system is absolutely fascinating. I can't tell you have often fuses save all our butts every day from homes to cars to aircraft. It can be frustrating finding a fuse fault but when you find the fuse it's always a big sigh of relief 😅
it's a subtle, small touch, but I really appreciate Adam being a conscientious enough parent to blur out the young'uns' faces if/when they wander into a shot.
Im excited about this series for two reasons: 1 - Behind-the-scenes look at starting a restaurant essentially from scratch is amazing content. 2 - I moved to Farragut at the start of the year, and I love donuts and pizza
Long-time fan and an even bigger ragusea podcast listener! This vid gave me major Deja-Vu to the "Why celebrities all have restaurants" podcast. I have no doubt that your heart is in the right place, but make sure to follow the logic you outlined in the pod. Wishing you all the best Adam, keep at it!!
I trust Adam with his restaurant way more than other celebrities, he's known for his home cooking, he's done research on celebrity restaurants and this video shows how much he cares about the restaurant and Joe as a work partner and as a friend He seems way closer to (technically not his) restaurant than other celebrities are The celebrities never made their own prototypes of their products on their own
This really is nothing like the celebrities he mentioned in those videos. He's investing in and helping out an established chain. He has a small stake, and someone who knows what he's doing is already in charge.
@@Jason_Bryant yea i mean he is literally experimenting with the recipe x) what the others mentioned in the pod do is slapping there name on it. And as far as i understood he doesnt even do that.
@@Jason_Bryant Yeah, it's pretty clear that Adam is doing this to some degree just because he's always wanted to own a pizza place, rather than just because he knows a guy. Looking at that pizza, I'm jealous of those students who just get to have that whenever (they have the money to eat out on a student's budget)
As a UT student-turned-employee, I'm really excited to be able to walk over to a local donut shop on the regular. The funny part is that I'm pretty sure there used to be a mediocre Dunkin' Donuts in that spot at Vol Hall that closed down a year ago, so Status Dough is a welcome upgrade! I hope that location eventually sells pizza slices, I'd buy it for lunch everyday.
This really fascinates me as an engineer, the Methodology of fine-tuning the pizza dough recipe. Whittling it down from 100% doughnut dough - just to check the Extreme case - to 20% through trial and error just speaks to me
Adam, please consider adding Sicilian pizza to the menu in future! The ratios you had with higher donut dough creating a puffy, spongier consistency is very similar to Sicilian. Not only is it my favorite type of pizza, but as a native New Yorker, I was shocked to discover how difficult it is to find outside of the NY/NJ area. I assume it's just as rare in Tennessee, so could be a surprise hit!
Excited to see the progress on this! One tip about the tavern style: It's supposed to be thin and crispy. The trick to the crisp is to roll out the dough and dock it the day before and let it air dry in the fridge over night. This ensures that the pizza dough bakes up really crispy. Give it a shot!
Yeah this is not the tavern style I’m familiar with. The tavern styles I had in Chicago had dough that was thin as paper and crisssspy. This is odd and honestly doesn’t look appetizing to me.
@@spencerclark90having grown up in Illinois and family in Illinois, while tavern is definitely not as thin as New York pizza, it's not that much thicker either. Seeing how thick those test pizzas were made me think of school lunch pizzas, not tavern style. Honestly, the Domino's thin is a very close comparison to tavern style if people need something to compare to nationally.
@@jakehr3 & @spencerclark90, the pizza crust experiment reminds me more of "double-dough" pizza (like Falco's on the South Side of Chicago), a thicker "thin crust" that "Old School" types of pizza places offer as another option to the Tavern-Style "cracker crust" made famous by Vito & Nick's (also on Chicago's South Side).
This might be the most Ragusea 'retirement' project I've ever heard of, really appreciate the openness in the project and detail/honesty around the dough testing and am looking forward to seeing this series, hopefully I'll find a way to stop in when I eventually visit the US of A
I think I may have mentioned on one of his videos before. One time I worked at a pizza place that just used the dough recipe on the side of the flour bag, and won awards with it. Doesn't need to be complicated, or even unique. I think the other factors are more important.
My cooking journey started 5+ years ago when I wanted to learn how to make pizza for my friends, which is what brought me to your channel. Fast forward to today, and cooking is one of my favorite hobbies, and I've started developing my own recipes, including a Detroit pizza cooked in a smoker. All that is to say, I'm really enjoying this so far :)
I already love this series. Reminds me of The War Owl building his own map in CSGO - nothing like a classic multi-part project series with some real life implications.
New york style is absolutely a thing to look at for the campus location. Big slices sold individually so students can grab a quick bite for lunch. Worked at a pizza place in a medium sized downtown and it was always popping.
The joe donut video was my first introduction to Adam and sold me, thank you for being a mellow, honest toober and valuing information over hyperboles!!
Status Dough... Perfect name for diversifying into any kind of baked good...Or not even baked! Even pasta! Udon! Ramen! Gyoza! Bao! The possibilities are finite, but numerous!
This is such a great idea. Both the resto and the content series. It reminds me of when I used to work at a Detroit Style pizza shop and the owner spent close to a year testing out pies before he opened up his shop. He claimed he ain't nothing but pizza for a year and just lived off eating his test pies. He also stresed how much time the dough took to get right with proofing and fermenting.
As a Chicago native, that final pizza photo got me very excited, even though I don't live near Knoxville either, lol. Man, I miss Chicago tavern thin sausage pizza.
Best of luck in your new venture! I think I speak for all your subscribers when I say we wish you all the best of success!! You gave us so much over the years, just feels good to see you progresses and get into things you love more. A new pattern I have seen recently is people in your position invite their viewers to invest. Just a thought, no clue if that would work for you guys but I'm sure there are folks on here who would definitely consider it. Wish i lived in the US to come and try it! Best of luck!
This is really cool. Seeing the experimenting for the menu items, let alone the main product, of a restaurant is a perspective that is really interesting and one that just kind is unheard of on UA-cam.
About 30 years ago in SF (business trip) I was listening to a morning DJ from New York/New Jersey go completely nuclear on the west coast adulterations of pizza. He started off with the classic "pineapple does not belong on a pizza" and went on from there for nearly an hour without interruption or taking phone calls. While he was mainly concerned with toppings, sauce and dough weren't spared his ire and damnation for straying too far from NYC perfection. It was one of the best uses of a bully pulpit I've ever listened to, even though I personally like pineapple on pizza at times. I've noticed that since then pizza has gone in two very distinct directions: 1) militant return to the classic pizza (take no prisoners, except maybe pineapple), and 2) hearts of romaine on Nutella pizza with Ranch dressing.
I'm forever shocked at how the pineapple thing seems to get people. Personally, one of my favorite pizzas is the hawaiian. We had a brick oven place in town that did one with fresh pineapple, prosciutto, and roasted red peppers. It was great. Even a dominos hawaiian is great though. In fact, growing up, every time there was a pizza party anywhere (I'm in southeast michigan) there was always pepperoni, sausage, "supreme", cheese, and hawaiian.
This is a whoolllee lot of videos for a retired youtuber! Not complaining, please do whatever you want to do. I've liked all of your videos post-retirement so far.
I’ve been enjoying your videos since the beginning and know how much it’s been your “what if?” kind of dream to open a pizza place that for life reasons just never seemed practical for you. I’m so glad you’ve found a way to get as close to realizing that dream as possible without compromising too much on your overall goals and your life trajectory right now. So happy for you Adam!
Adam if you're looking to make tavern pizza you have to have fennel seed in the sauce and any sausage. Fennel is the distinctive flavor that makes Chicago tavern style pizza great
3:50 "what we both like is elevated basics... it's not anything fancy or novel, it's just the very, very best version of a simple basic thing that everyone wants. like a perfect t-shirt. not with any kind of crazy logo or weird design features, just a perfect, soft t-shirt, that just fits you exactly right. i think we both wanna do that with pizza." what an amazing quote. i resonate with this philosophy whole-heartedly!
Headed to Knoxville for a game in the next month. Friends are already expecting doughnuts so might as well bring some good ones to the tailgate. Thanks for the reminder that this exists and good luck with the pizza!
Really looking forward to the upcoming videos with you and Joe! I think it's an awesome direction you are going in. You have some renewed energy in all the trial and errors, and I wish you luck in your new venture!
Love this type of video Adam. It’s super interesting to see how your food outlook and philosophy mixes with a mission to actually create things on scale that many will enjoy. Always a pleasure getting a look into your mind.
“Restaurants fail, that’s what restaurants do” - The Ragusea Podcast, not long ago. All the best in your endeavour, Adam! Been silently supporting since 2019.
@@hidarling641we don't really know if the chain is actually successful. A lot of restaurants open up multiple locations even though they aren't necessarily doing well. Some people just somehow manage to get tons of credit.
one thing i'd get a lot from family and friends after bringing over food made from pandemic recipe videos like yours was "you should open a bakery/restaurant/etc!". so this video series is going to be fascinating to get a sense of that jump in scale from the home kitchen to a commercial business, best of luck on this!
So happy for you man ! I remember you talked about in a video a few years ago that one of your dreams was to open a pizza restaurant, old dough pizzeria was what you said you would call it if I remember correctly. Love when dreams come true !! LFG !
Holy shit I saw the title and I was like "wow I almost thought he was making an actual pizza place. This is probably a hypothetical tutorial, but wouldn't that be awesome?" AND THEN I PLAYED THE VIDEO AND IT WAS THE THING
So happy to hear about your new venture into Pizza! Nothing but best wishes and success for you both. I don't live in TN but man I would so look forward to a location opening somewhere in TX, I'd travel to check it out. Living here vs. my hometown that HAD TONS of Italian immigrants where good quality Italian food makes me miss a great quality pizza so much here. TX has Mexican food covered, but the Italian food places here have made me feel like I'm missing home.
I used to work in a locally owned donut shop similar to Joe's place, and it's awesome to see you supporting someone like him and using your knowledge of food and advertising to better your local economy and food scene! Lookint forward to more videos on this
Love this so much! I remember when Adam talked about if he opened a restaurant, small menu-pizza and the soup or pasta of the day, glad he is living his dream!
Man about a year ago I was looking into quitting my lucrative but soul crushing at times career and looking into opening a pizzeria concept and I remember being so pumped to do experiments and stuff like this. Ultimately, it didn't work out for a number of reasons. Wishing you all the best on fulfilling my dream and hopefully yours too.
Imagine a pizza crust, fluffy like a donut but crispy like a churro. Might want to explore that. It's the dough behind the Chinese fritters You Tiao, and also Butterfly fritters. It uses sourdough, and traditionally we use a small amount of the last batch to get this batch's dough fermentation going. In Singapore, some pizza stores create a crust of similar texture - - using new yeast though; not sourdough.
Dude, Adam. Making money can only happen from helping someone else out. If you're not helping someone, then they aren't buying what you're selling. Helping people = making money. Period. Do not feel guilty for the money you have made. You have earned every penny of it.
In a world where things get knocked down routinely, it's good to see someone like Adam help pick things back up. Support your community, even if it's just pizza. Because it isn't JUST pizza.
I haven't been in the mind for cooking content lately so I haven't really watched as many of your videos, but this series got me back in. Hugs from Sweden :D
I recently started working at a sandwich shop that also makes tavern style pizzas in almost the exact same way except we use pre made crusts, but I cant lie, they are also now my favorite style of pizza
Best of luck with the venture! The Ragusea pizza was my family’s first foray into making pizza at home. We have 4 doughs fermenting in the fridge right now! Hope I can try the finished product some day
3:48 Margherita pizza is my go to, when testing a new place. Really simple. Get a great taste of the crust and sauce. But the "basic pizza", a classic? A really good pepperoni is a U.S staple. Side note: I've been baking bell peppers with pizza toppings inside. 100% recommended.
@flmalegre I wouldn't use green, too green. Lol Red can be a bit too sweet, but they do work. I found orange are perfect for this, well balanced. But which ever you prefer. (It also works super well with cheese-steak fillings)
This video kinda shares the values you stated in it; it's simple and to the point but it's filled with passion and some genuine cool shit. This looks like the start to something really awsome and I can't wait to see were it goes.
I like that Teddy Roosevelt quote, "Do what you can, where you are, with what you have." Exciting to open a food business and the prototype looks good!
Congrats! Joe is a great dude the couple of times I have met him. The doughnuts are by far my favorite in Knoxville. Congrats on this for both you and him. I will have to try the Pizza when you get this going.
Adam: retires
also Adam: starts a pizza restaurant
Classic Adam
When did he retire?
Even in semi-retirement, I think Adam instinctively knows his hobbies don't generate enough drama. Going in on a food business? GUARANTEED DRAMA!
I mean, tha canonical DnD retirement plan involves buying a tavarn
@@DouglasRosser ADD nyc style pizza a $$$ maker drama
Adam, I don't know how much episodes you're planning about the pizza place, but please make a lot of them and you can make one of every detail. I love learning about things you found out while testing, what works an what didn't and why.
I second this suggestion. I also like seeing the behind-the-scenes of running a restaurant business, so not just the cooking, but the tools, equipment, & preparations.
come have a slice of pie in jonesboro, papa cellas
This
adam has one of the best analytical minds i've seen in the foodtube universe, so it's great to see him doing a bunch of trial-and-error to refine a unique saleable product. most of the world's great food emerges from millions of repetitions, so i'm hoping he keeps trying different things for a long time
I'm looking forward to this series!
3:39 I was getting ready for "... like the tshirts they make at ____, sponsor of this video!"
i moved my curser along the progress bar because i was sure that was ad time
Would've bet my paycheck that was a sponsor transition
Was just abt to comment this lol
He bamboozled us all.
so mad that I was baited and he didn't set the hook.
I used to work with one of those convayer ovens. I was actually responsible for cleaning it once a week. got the assembly of the bottom rack wrong once. Whole thing broke down $17k machine at the time, I was mortified. Turns out I just blew a 5 dollar fuse. That got replaced, ran it in reverse, reset the rack, and we were back to making pizza after a 10 minuite heatup. Scared the HELL outta me for my lifelyhood though
@@Ohyoucaughtme The dichotomy of Business, apparently.
"I make sure this oven is properly working and cleaned every week!" (I worked at a cookie place once, actually cleaning was about a once in every week kind of thing, so not totally unreasonable)
vs
"Yeah the last time I got this oven checked by a professional was when I bought it in 94" 🤣
They probably took into account mistakes like that and hence the blown fuse. Pretty neat.
I used to work with a conveyor oven too, but it was multi levels, and you had to be really quick and go from one end of the oven to the other and make sure the pizzas didnt fall on the floor. And then it would keep getting faster!
same thing happened to me with a cnc milling machine
The engineering of protection systems like that 5 dollar fuse saving you from damaging a very expensive system or expensive components within the system is absolutely fascinating. I can't tell you have often fuses save all our butts every day from homes to cars to aircraft. It can be frustrating finding a fuse fault but when you find the fuse it's always a big sigh of relief 😅
it's a subtle, small touch, but I really appreciate Adam being a conscientious enough parent to blur out the young'uns' faces if/when they wander into a shot.
lol and the carefully positioned elbow as well
And he feeds them microplastics
@@marknalbertaeveryone does lmao
@marknalberta be more self-righteous
@@marknalberta 🤨
Im excited about this series for two reasons:
1 - Behind-the-scenes look at starting a restaurant essentially from scratch is amazing content.
2 - I moved to Farragut at the start of the year, and I love donuts and pizza
Long-time fan and an even bigger ragusea podcast listener! This vid gave me major Deja-Vu to the "Why celebrities all have restaurants" podcast. I have no doubt that your heart is in the right place, but make sure to follow the logic you outlined in the pod. Wishing you all the best Adam, keep at it!!
I trust Adam with his restaurant way more than other celebrities, he's known for his home cooking, he's done research on celebrity restaurants and this video shows how much he cares about the restaurant and Joe as a work partner and as a friend
He seems way closer to (technically not his) restaurant than other celebrities are
The celebrities never made their own prototypes of their products on their own
This really is nothing like the celebrities he mentioned in those videos. He's investing in and helping out an established chain. He has a small stake, and someone who knows what he's doing is already in charge.
@@Jason_Bryant yea i mean he is literally experimenting with the recipe x) what the others mentioned in the pod do is slapping there name on it. And as far as i understood he doesnt even do that.
I was thinking about the same thing 😂
@@Jason_Bryant Yeah, it's pretty clear that Adam is doing this to some degree just because he's always wanted to own a pizza place, rather than just because he knows a guy. Looking at that pizza, I'm jealous of those students who just get to have that whenever (they have the money to eat out on a student's budget)
I remember the Squarespace video where he talked about making a menu for his “if I ever opened a pizza place”
Wow how time has passed
a prophecy fufilled
It all comes full circle
Or square
I swear he's talked many times about opening a pizza place
So glad his dream came true
Accidentally manifesting dreams.
The elbow shift to cover your kid's face was a top-tier dad move.
As a UT student-turned-employee, I'm really excited to be able to walk over to a local donut shop on the regular. The funny part is that I'm pretty sure there used to be a mediocre Dunkin' Donuts in that spot at Vol Hall that closed down a year ago, so Status Dough is a welcome upgrade! I hope that location eventually sells pizza slices, I'd buy it for lunch everyday.
as a utahn it took me a second to realize what you meant by "UT" :P
This really fascinates me as an engineer, the Methodology of fine-tuning the pizza dough recipe. Whittling it down from 100% doughnut dough - just to check the Extreme case - to 20% through trial and error just speaks to me
Engineering pizza process. Love it my engineering-brothers!
as also an engineer, I love tycoon style video games, and this looks like it's about to be pizza shop tycoon in real life. and I am all in for it.
Yeah you know 100% something is gonna suck. But you just have to try ot first
This is partially what your colleagues in chemical engineering, and other food sci engineers are doing. Although at a much lower more technical level
Totally agree. I was hoping for more in depth detail about the trial and error process! Make, fail, make, fail, etc...
This reminds me of his video from a couple of years ago when he helped run a restaurant. Congrats Adam!
Never thought I’d see him being a partner in an actual established restaurant after that video, but dang - this looks exciting.
I'm pretty sure he's even wearing the same shirt as he did in that video, it's so cute 😭
Adam, please consider adding Sicilian pizza to the menu in future! The ratios you had with higher donut dough creating a puffy, spongier consistency is very similar to Sicilian. Not only is it my favorite type of pizza, but as a native New Yorker, I was shocked to discover how difficult it is to find outside of the NY/NJ area. I assume it's just as rare in Tennessee, so could be a surprise hit!
Indeed, there are so many different styles of pizza base.
Excited to see the progress on this!
One tip about the tavern style: It's supposed to be thin and crispy. The trick to the crisp is to roll out the dough and dock it the day before and let it air dry in the fridge over night. This ensures that the pizza dough bakes up really crispy.
Give it a shot!
Giving this algorithm pull so Adam sees it!
Yeah this is not the tavern style I’m familiar with. The tavern styles I had in Chicago had dough that was thin as paper and crisssspy. This is odd and honestly doesn’t look appetizing to me.
I prefer my pizza dough NOT very crispy. A little crisp .. good.
Then again, I don't live near Tennessee.
@@spencerclark90having grown up in Illinois and family in Illinois, while tavern is definitely not as thin as New York pizza, it's not that much thicker either. Seeing how thick those test pizzas were made me think of school lunch pizzas, not tavern style. Honestly, the Domino's thin is a very close comparison to tavern style if people need something to compare to nationally.
@@jakehr3 & @spencerclark90, the pizza crust experiment reminds me more of "double-dough" pizza (like Falco's on the South Side of Chicago), a thicker "thin crust" that "Old School" types of pizza places offer as another option to the Tavern-Style "cracker crust" made famous by Vito & Nick's (also on Chicago's South Side).
This might be the most Ragusea 'retirement' project I've ever heard of, really appreciate the openness in the project and detail/honesty around the dough testing and am looking forward to seeing this series, hopefully I'll find a way to stop in when I eventually visit the US of A
I don’t know why, but it makes me really happy to see this guy be happy. It’s like I can also aspire to that happiness somehow. Love it
I think I may have mentioned on one of his videos before. One time I worked at a pizza place that just used the dough recipe on the side of the flour bag, and won awards with it. Doesn't need to be complicated, or even unique. I think the other factors are more important.
My cooking journey started 5+ years ago when I wanted to learn how to make pizza for my friends, which is what brought me to your channel. Fast forward to today, and cooking is one of my favorite hobbies, and I've started developing my own recipes, including a Detroit pizza cooked in a smoker. All that is to say, I'm really enjoying this so far :)
I already love this series. Reminds me of The War Owl building his own map in CSGO - nothing like a classic multi-part project series with some real life implications.
bro, all i want is de_amigo to be further developed
@@Flashv28 i dont think i would ever find de_amigo discourse on a ragussa video 😭
What?
Adam seeing this and going on a de_amigo rabbit hole
Truly the crossover event of the evening.
New york style is absolutely a thing to look at for the campus location. Big slices sold individually so students can grab a quick bite for lunch. Worked at a pizza place in a medium sized downtown and it was always popping.
Yeah, but it will drip all over books (do they use them anymore?) and laptops/phones while eating.
@@chsyankQueens, NY here… no it doesn’t drip all over. New Yorkers do EVERYTHING with a slice of pizza in their hand. Just give it a fold and eat.
People who live outside NY, & maybe NJ probably have much greasier pizza that's not as high quality. But I don't eat pizza very often.
The joe donut video was my first introduction to Adam and sold me, thank you for being a mellow, honest toober and valuing information over hyperboles!!
Status Dough... Perfect name for diversifying into any kind of baked good...Or not even baked! Even pasta! Udon! Ramen! Gyoza! Bao! The possibilities are finite, but numerous!
This is such a great idea. Both the resto and the content series. It reminds me of when I used to work at a Detroit Style pizza shop and the owner spent close to a year testing out pies before he opened up his shop. He claimed he ain't nothing but pizza for a year and just lived off eating his test pies. He also stresed how much time the dough took to get right with proofing and fermenting.
This is the best SquareSpace ad I’ve seen. It’s cool to see how it actually looks.
As a Chicago native, that final pizza photo got me very excited, even though I don't live near Knoxville either, lol. Man, I miss Chicago tavern thin sausage pizza.
wow the picture of that prototype at the end there immediately made my mouth start watering i want that so bad
Best of luck in your new venture! I think I speak for all your subscribers when I say we wish you all the best of success!! You gave us so much over the years, just feels good to see you progresses and get into things you love more. A new pattern I have seen recently is people in your position invite their viewers to invest. Just a thought, no clue if that would work for you guys but I'm sure there are folks on here who would definitely consider it. Wish i lived in the US to come and try it! Best of luck!
This is really cool. Seeing the experimenting for the menu items, let alone the main product, of a restaurant is a perspective that is really interesting and one that just kind is unheard of on UA-cam.
About 30 years ago in SF (business trip) I was listening to a morning DJ from New York/New Jersey go completely nuclear on the west coast adulterations of pizza. He started off with the classic "pineapple does not belong on a pizza" and went on from there for nearly an hour without interruption or taking phone calls. While he was mainly concerned with toppings, sauce and dough weren't spared his ire and damnation for straying too far from NYC perfection. It was one of the best uses of a bully pulpit I've ever listened to, even though I personally like pineapple on pizza at times.
I've noticed that since then pizza has gone in two very distinct directions: 1) militant return to the classic pizza (take no prisoners, except maybe pineapple), and 2) hearts of romaine on Nutella pizza with Ranch dressing.
I'm forever shocked at how the pineapple thing seems to get people. Personally, one of my favorite pizzas is the hawaiian. We had a brick oven place in town that did one with fresh pineapple, prosciutto, and roasted red peppers. It was great. Even a dominos hawaiian is great though. In fact, growing up, every time there was a pizza party anywhere (I'm in southeast michigan) there was always pepperoni, sausage, "supreme", cheese, and hawaiian.
Your nerding out on the topic of pizza dough is awesome!!!
This is a whoolllee lot of videos for a retired youtuber! Not complaining, please do whatever you want to do. I've liked all of your videos post-retirement so far.
I love this direction for a video series. So exciting! Excited to see how this goes !
Didnt expect the next pizza vid was gonna be this congrats!
Adam. All us fellow east coast pizza lovers are looking at you with all this Midwest love.
Da semi-retired king is back baby he neva miss we're eating good today y'all
I’ve been enjoying your videos since the beginning and know how much it’s been your “what if?” kind of dream to open a pizza place that for life reasons just never seemed practical for you. I’m so glad you’ve found a way to get as close to realizing that dream as possible without compromising too much on your overall goals and your life trajectory right now. So happy for you Adam!
6:01 What a Pro! - that subtle elbow flick to cover his son's face 😅
reminds me of all those videos of dads catching their kids as they fall off things. instinct is weirdly effective.
12:02 I love how Adam casually throws in a shot of him rocking the Hot Dad look
Adam if you're looking to make tavern pizza you have to have fennel seed in the sauce and any sausage. Fennel is the distinctive flavor that makes Chicago tavern style pizza great
3:50
"what we both like is elevated basics... it's not anything fancy or novel, it's just the very, very best version of a simple basic thing that everyone wants. like a perfect t-shirt. not with any kind of crazy logo or weird design features, just a perfect, soft t-shirt, that just fits you exactly right. i think we both wanna do that with pizza."
what an amazing quote. i resonate with this philosophy whole-heartedly!
6:49 Oh, the alchemy of deliciousness.
Headed to Knoxville for a game in the next month. Friends are already expecting doughnuts so might as well bring some good ones to the tailgate. Thanks for the reminder that this exists and good luck with the pizza!
Adam:”I am semi retired”
Adam 3 months later: “I am starting a pizza restaurant”
Adam, you have a talent for making everything interesting! I started making pizza after watching your first videos and I am still I learning from you.
10:50 Pro-dough-type!
I didn’t look at the comments once the whole video until the exact moment he said that. I read your comment as he was saying proto prototype lol
Great video. Always a pleasure listening to this guy talk
Gosh he's so excited
Really looking forward to the upcoming videos with you and Joe! I think it's an awesome direction you are going in. You have some renewed energy in all the trial and errors, and I wish you luck in your new venture!
3:44 no sponsor segue jumpscare
Love this type of video Adam. It’s super interesting to see how your food outlook and philosophy mixes with a mission to actually create things on scale that many will enjoy. Always a pleasure getting a look into your mind.
“Restaurants fail, that’s what restaurants do” - The Ragusea Podcast, not long ago.
All the best in your endeavour, Adam! Been silently supporting since 2019.
To be fair, this is a fairly successful chain already, so it's not quite as huge of a gamble as when Dylan Lemay started his own ice cream shop/
@@hidarling641we don't really know if the chain is actually successful. A lot of restaurants open up multiple locations even though they aren't necessarily doing well. Some people just somehow manage to get tons of credit.
i thought of that podcast immediately when i read the title
Thank you for giving us an inside look at this process! So so cool to see how commercial recipes are created. It’s surely an art.
Adam: I'm semi-retired.
Also Adam: I'm going to help start a pizza place!
isn't that what semi-retirement is all about?
Honestly pretty cool that he can put his passion into a real life project too!
Semi-retired mostly in the sense he's not doing the stuff he was originally known for as much
🤫 shush now!! don't let him figure it out!!!
one thing i'd get a lot from family and friends after bringing over food made from pandemic recipe videos like yours was "you should open a bakery/restaurant/etc!". so this video series is going to be fascinating to get a sense of that jump in scale from the home kitchen to a commercial business, best of luck on this!
Shout out to Farragut! Love your stuff, best of luck!
Congratulations!!! Your values and the act of giving back show what a cool person you are. Wishing you success.
People still laugh but making perfect 🍕 is an art !
So happy for you man !
I remember you talked about in a video a few years ago that one of your dreams was to open a pizza restaurant, old dough pizzeria was what you said you would call it if I remember correctly. Love when dreams come true !!
LFG !
Excuse me? Farragut is NOT a suburb of Knoxville. We are a TOWN! ** laughs haughtily **
Who gives a rat's ass?😂😂😂
As a local Knoxville resident who LOVES status dough, I could not be any more excited for this project! Can’t wait to try out the pizza in October!!
Congrats. Your humility and kindness does not go unnoticed!
I literally just started my own pizza popup and am planning to open up a small shop soon. Thank you so much. Please do more!
Holy shit I saw the title and I was like "wow I almost thought he was making an actual pizza place. This is probably a hypothetical tutorial, but wouldn't that be awesome?" AND THEN I PLAYED THE VIDEO AND IT WAS THE THING
Thanks for sharing
So happy to hear about your new venture into Pizza! Nothing but best wishes and success for you both. I don't live in TN but man I would so look forward to a location opening somewhere in TX, I'd travel to check it out. Living here vs. my hometown that HAD TONS of Italian immigrants where good quality Italian food makes me miss a great quality pizza so much here. TX has Mexican food covered, but the Italian food places here have made me feel like I'm missing home.
This is the true Knox Event.
I used to work in a locally owned donut shop similar to Joe's place, and it's awesome to see you supporting someone like him and using your knowledge of food and advertising to better your local economy and food scene! Lookint forward to more videos on this
His kid walking in and him blocking the camera is pretty wholesome.
I noticed the arm shift.
Fantastic! I lobe seeing this right after Joshua weissman made a video on pizza, and he ended it saying, "Today is the best time for pizza!"
12:42 wow this is a ad in itself and it had a sponsor too, lol
Jup pretty insane😢
Love this so much! I remember when Adam talked about if he opened a restaurant, small menu-pizza and the soup or pasta of the day, glad he is living his dream!
Don't cut on the pizza screen! It dents the screen and the cutter
Man about a year ago I was looking into quitting my lucrative but soul crushing at times career and looking into opening a pizzeria concept and I remember being so pumped to do experiments and stuff like this. Ultimately, it didn't work out for a number of reasons. Wishing you all the best on fulfilling my dream and hopefully yours too.
I'm starting to think that you must have had a t-shirt sponsor for this video that fell through, with all the t-shirt references.
This might be my single favorite video you've ever made. I love the process!
3:52 yes a thousand times over. A million times over. Jesus Christ.
I lived in Knoxville over the summer 2 years ago. I loved those donuts a ton. I have to come back sometime to try the pizza.
Tennessee? That’s like at least half of a European continent away from where I am!
Everything but metric system, eh?
Could you do me a favor and measure by number of football fields?
Imagine a pizza crust, fluffy like a donut but crispy like a churro. Might want to explore that. It's the dough behind the Chinese fritters You Tiao, and also Butterfly fritters. It uses sourdough, and traditionally we use a small amount of the last batch to get this batch's dough fermentation going. In Singapore, some pizza stores create a crust of similar texture - - using new yeast though; not sourdough.
Sounds horrific
Dude, Adam. Making money can only happen from helping someone else out. If you're not helping someone, then they aren't buying what you're selling. Helping people = making money. Period. Do not feel guilty for the money you have made. You have earned every penny of it.
Genuinely so happy for you Adam!!
3:00 man just say you wanted to start a business nothing wrong with that
Lmao right?
That's the vibe I got as well. Like, drop the philanthropy nonsense
Nah.. he just cute like that
@@IP-220found adam's alt account
In a world where things get knocked down routinely, it's good to see someone like Adam help pick things back up.
Support your community, even if it's just pizza. Because it isn't JUST pizza.
"You wanna get a slice from Ragusea's?"
- Me, hopefully
This is gonna be amazing
6:15 Hererogeneity!
This is pretty refreshing.
What I mean is you are a superb pizza maker for the home cook.
I hope this succeed.
I love Status Dough as well! Excited to hear about the pizza!
I haven't been in the mind for cooking content lately so I haven't really watched as many of your videos, but this series got me back in. Hugs from Sweden :D
This is so cool Adam. Wishing y'all the best success in this venture
I recently started working at a sandwich shop that also makes tavern style pizzas in almost the exact same way except we use pre made crusts, but I cant lie, they are also now my favorite style of pizza
Best of luck with the venture! The Ragusea pizza was my family’s first foray into making pizza at home. We have 4 doughs fermenting in the fridge right now! Hope I can try the finished product some day
3:48 Margherita pizza is my go to, when testing a new place.
Really simple.
Get a great taste of the crust and sauce.
But the "basic pizza", a classic? A really good pepperoni is a U.S staple.
Side note: I've been baking bell peppers with pizza toppings inside. 100% recommended.
Oh thats a good idea. Green or red?
@flmalegre I wouldn't use green, too green. Lol
Red can be a bit too sweet, but they do work.
I found orange are perfect for this, well balanced.
But which ever you prefer.
(It also works super well with cheese-steak fillings)
Great project. Happy for you man! Happy for us that we get to learn as you go.
This video kinda shares the values you stated in it; it's simple and to the point but it's filled with passion and some genuine cool shit. This looks like the start to something really awsome and I can't wait to see were it goes.
May all pizza gods bless your new venture!
Looking forward to watching the rest of this series 👍👍👍
I like that Teddy Roosevelt quote, "Do what you can, where you are, with what you have." Exciting to open a food business and the prototype looks good!
Congrats! Joe is a great dude the couple of times I have met him. The doughnuts are by far my favorite in Knoxville. Congrats on this for both you and him. I will have to try the Pizza when you get this going.
Ever since I first found your channel I wanted an Adam Ragusea pizza! I hope it FLIES off and comes to my state someday soon!! Very best of luck!!
That is really cool Adam. As a long time viewer, its cool to see you come full circle on pizza and the restaurant business