Jeff Smokevitch tosses dough for the camera in front of the Brown Dog Friday after-noon.Smokevitch has been invited to pizza competitions in Italy this May. [Photo by Kevin Ludwig]

It’s been popping up occasion-ally on the special’sboard atBrown Dog Pizza: Detroitsquare pizza with pepperoni andmushrooms. But little would theaverage diner know, this pizzarecently took the sixth at theWorld Pizza Championships atthe International Pizza Expo inLas Vegas.Detroit square pizza: soundsunfamiliar. Sure, there’s Chicagodeep dish, and New York stylepizza, but Detroit? It’s a squarepizza, topped first with the top-pings, then the cheese, and fin-ished off with two stripes oftomato sauce running the lengthof the pie. Who knew? “The taste is crispy,airy inthe middle, but with a definitechew to it,” said JeffSmokevitch, co-owner of BrownDog Pizza and the man behindthe award-winning pizza. It all started with an idea: tomake the pizza at Brown Doginto something excellent. Smokevitch attended theInternational School of Pizza inSan Francisco last summerwhere he graduated certified inboth Italian and Neopolitan style pizzas. He won the bestpizza award at the end of thesession and the school’s owner,Tony Gemignani, invitedSmokevitch to come back lastfall to assist him in teachinganother course. “I saw our pizza at Brown Doggo from OK to really good withTony’s help,” Smokevitch said. At the competition in LasVegas, which took place in thebeginning of March, Smokevitchcompeted against 65 other pizzamakers and placed sixth. Hemissed continuing to the finalsby 3/10 of a point, as only the topfive pizzas make it. This is quitea feat considering the fifth placewinner was the grandson of GusGuerra, the original founder ofthe Detroit-style square pizza. Competing in the traditionalstyle pizza category, competitorshave 10 toppings to choose from,but can only put two on theirpizza. Points are awarded basedon both appearance and taste. Smokevitch loaded up his carand headed to Vegas with a cool-er filled with all the necessaryingredients, even a taste ofhome.“I brought Telluride waterwith me with some snow mixedin, for that little bit of extra flarefor the judges,” Smokevitch said. He made the dough the daybefore, let it sit in the specialDetroit-style blue-steel pan forhours to season and let it comeup to room temperature. Hecarefully followed the recipethat has taken him months cre-ate.Secret to a successful pie?“It’s really in the way you put ittogether and the attention todetail when you make yourdough,” Smokevitch said. It’s not necessarily in thequality of the ingredients, butmore how one puts them togeth-er. Gemignani has invitedSmokevitch to competitions inNaples, Italy in the upcomingmonths and has also invitedSmokevitch to be part of histeam, the World PizzaChampions. And soon, Detroit-style pizzawill be available regularly atBrown Dog. The delay is onlybecause the special blue-steelpans, classically used to makeDetroit-style pizza, are onlyavailable from one source, andas the company recently movedto Mexico, getting productionrunning again has been slow.“Shawn Randazzo [the fifthplace winner] has an insidesource to get the pans, and he’sgoing to send me some. Withintwo or three weeks it should beon the menu,” Smokevitch said. Don’t think that all this pizzaknowledge will drasticallychange the menu at Brown Dog,however. “Our customers really appre-ciate the menu we’ve had for thepast seven years. Someone cancome in multiple days and get, asandwich one day, a salad andthen a pizza the next: all differ-ent things. This menu fits ourconcept in Telluride,” he said.Expansion is on the horizon,though. Brown Dog Pizza is going tothe Front Range. This summer,Smokevitch is opening up aNeopolitan style pizza restau-rant near Denver’s WashingtonPark. It will be pizza and salads— a simpler concept thanTelluride’s extensive menu, andit will still bear the name BrownDog Pizza. As far as competition goes,“My goal is to win. I want ourname and style of pizza to reallyget out there,” Smokevitch said.“It’s the same in the restaurantand in competition. I try andbeat my score from last time justlike I constantly try and improvethe product.”

January 23, 2011

Shortage of steel pans has Detroit-style pizza makers scrambling

By Sylvia Rector
Detroit Free Press Restaurant Critic

Here in Detroit, we all know what it takes to make a great Detroit-style pizza: dough for the thick but airy crust, absurd amounts of cheese and ladles of rich, long-simmered sauce.

But the special ingredient most people don't know about is the pan -- a certain blue-steel industrial utility pan made for decades by a small company in West Virginia.

Or at least they used to be made there, until the company closed its line about a year ago and moved the work to Mexico -- where it still hasn't been able to get production going.

Restaurant supply companies here -- and apparently everywhere else -- have been out of them for many months.

Pizza makers' orders for pans are stacking up by the thousands and causing problems for big chains and small independents alike.

"You wouldn't even believe how many pans we have on back order" -- at least 4,000 small and medium sizes and 700 extra larges -- says Patti Domasicwicz at People's Restaurant Equipment in Detroit. She hasn't received a shipment since April.

Other restaurant suppliers she knows are in the same boat. "All of us would have ordered a whole lot in before they moved, but they didn't give us a chance," she says.

The pans get their name from the tint of the metal when it's new. The manufacturer, who didn't want any publicity, says they were never meant for baking; they were designed to hold small parts in factories.

But somehow they became the pan of choice for nearly every big name in Detroit-style pizza. Domasicwicz, who has worked at People's for 38 years, says Buddy's started using them "many, many years ago."

Today, she says, "you figure you've got Buddy's Pizza, Shield's Pizza, all the Jet's Pizzas" using them. Others include Loui's, Cloverleaf and Primo's. And then there's the growing number of Detroit-style pizzerias around the country, where transplanted Michiganders are introducing happy customers to thick pies with square, cheesy corners.

Former Birmingham resident Jeff Smokevitch, owner of Brown Dog Pizza in Telluride, Colo., added Detroit-style slices to his line of thin pizzas in October to see how they'd do. "It's unbelievable the response I've had," he says. He wants to sell whole pies, but he doesn't want to buy additional pans until he can get the blue steels.

Other pans simply don't yield the same kind of crust, pizza makers insist.

The blue steels are "just like a great black skillet pan," says Wes Pikula, Buddy's vice president of operations. After they're seasoned, "they have a way of capturing the flavors in the metal" in a way that other pans he has tried do not.

Buddy's isn't in dire need of more pans, but it has some on back order. Pikula was told to expect them in February.

But a very frustrated Eugene Jett -- cofounder of the fast-growing Jet's Pizza chain -- is through waiting.

After promised deliveries didn't come in September or December, he went into action.

"We've tried other pans and (the pizza) doesn't come out as good," he says. So he had the original pans analyzed by a lab in Lansing, found a manufacturer, and is having them made -- right here in Michigan. He says the key, by the way, is the thickness of the steel.

"They're cutting them as we speak," he said last week. And not a moment too soon: Two new Jet's are opening at the end of the month and he's totally out of pans, after giving each of his last three stores only 75% of what they needed.

"The first thing is for me to get my pans," he says; the first run is enough for nine stores. If the manufacturer thinks they'd be profitable, it could put them into full production, he says.

"It took me a long time to figure out how to get them done," Jett said. "But I decided then, I will build my own pans."

Way to go, Mr. Jett.

Contact Sylvia Rector: 313-222-5026 or srector@freepress.com