Bait House Brewery Replaces Conveyor with Deck Oven and Improves Production

  August 31st, 2022          

            The Bait House Brewery in Sandusky, Ohio is a locally owned brewery that has expanded over the last couple of years to become not only a destination for proprietary beers, but also a local favorite because of their food offerings.  Alivia McGookey is one of the owner/operators of the establishment, and she works alongside her husband Michael (also the resident brew master) to make sure that they are providing customers with the best possible experience.  And there is no question that the addition of a Peerless CE131PE electric countertop oven has made the menu better than ever.  

            “We’ve been open since 2018,” said Alivia, explaining “we started with a food truck in the back, and we switched to having an outdoor grill a year later.  We just grilled hot dogs and brats and whatever we could do on the grill, and then we put in our kitchen in May of last year.”  McGookey said that they started with a conveyor they purchased used from another restaurant and admitted that she believed using a conveyor oven was the only way they would be able to produce their products quickly and consistently.  “Personally, I wanted to stick with a conveyor because of that fact,” she explained.  She believed, as many customers do, that an oven like the Peerless CE131PE countertop deck oven wouldn’t keep up, but eventually the conveyor oven showed its limitations.  “We would be backed up on our pizza side because we would have them all made and waiting to go through the conveyor,” she lamented, “but we could only do one at a time.”

            Since purchasing the Peerless CE131PE, McGookey said that the quality and consistency of their pizza has improved dramatically, but that the volume of pizzas they can produce has been incredible.  “We can now fit 6 of our largest pizzas at one time and it takes about five minutes to cook 6, whereas we could only get two to go through (the conveyor) in six minutes before.”  Although they currently only use this oven for their gourmet pizzas, McGookey said they have other plans in the works as well.  “We do have plans for a dessert that we could potentially start making in crocks in the oven,” she said, “but now we’re just getting a consistency with our pizzas and our timing down so we can make sure those are the best they can be.”

            Many customers mistakenly think that a deck oven wouldn’t be able to keep up during busy times.  However, the Peerless CE131PE has proven to have increased production with better throughput and produces a better pizza, and Alivia has become a believer.  “The consistency and quality of our pizzas has improved so much that I would always recommend Peerless Ovens, absolutely,” McGookey stated, adding that the Bait House would be considering adding an additional Peerless Oven in the future.

            Peerless Ovens has been in business for over 100 years and has been making its products in the Sandusky area for 90 of those years.   If you are in the market for a high capacity, space-saving oven for a restaurant, bar, bakery, food truck, or anywhere else, visit www.peerlessovens.com to view all our gas and electric models and request a free quote today!

Bait House Brewery

223 Meigs St.

Sandusky, Ohio 44870

419-502-HOPS