DeRusha Eats: Punch Pizza
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Twenty years ago, pizza in Minnesota was Red Savoy and Green Mill: traditional crust, thick red sauce, and tons of cheese. Against that backdrop, a guy who grew up in Italy opened up a wood-fired pizza place making the pizza of his childhood.
"Originally when we opened we were 'Punch wood-fired pizza,' because we were afraid nobody would know what Neapolitan was. We were afraid they'd think we were an ice cream shop," John Soranno, founder and co-owner of Punch, said.
Neapolitan simply means from Naples. That's where Soranno grew up, and where he learned the secret to great pizza: thin crust, slight blackened blisters, the flavors all blending together.
In those early days, the restaurant was sit-down, in St. Paul's Highland Park neighborhood, with a wood-fired oven that got up to 1000 degrees.
"I think we were the first Neapolitan-style pizza place in Minnesota," Soranno's co-owner John Puckett said. Puckett launched Caribou Coffee, and went into business with Soranno because he grew to love the pizza. "When he opened every pizza was served uncut."
"Yeah to be eaten with a fork and knife," Soranno laughed. "That lasted a month or two months."
But the love for this style of pizza has endured. Over twenty years, Punch Pizza is poised to open its tenth location.
"Ovens produce pizzas that have magic," Soranno said.
The centerpiece of each Punch Pizza location is a stunning, mosaic-tiled, wood-fired oven.
"Neapolitan is very simple. Our tomato sauce, we don't cook it. It's just 100 percent whole tomatoes that we crush. A little olive oil, fresh mozzarella. Our dough just has flour, water, and a leavening agent," Puckett said.
As fast-casual pizza has grown in popularity nationally -- with PizzaRev, Blaze Pizza, and Pieology -- some have wondered why Punch has remained a slow-and-steady operator.
"If you're trying to open 10 restaurants in a year, you have to have some shortcuts. You have to eliminate some variabilities. That's what happens, the quality suffers," Serrano said.
"Doing simple is hard," said Jenny Nyquist, who started working at Punch in college, and now is vice-president in charge of operations.
"It's slow and deliberate. We want to slowly grow and be methodical about where we go, what sites we choose," she said.
Part of that is the slow rate of training team members. Mastering the oven is hard. With no dial to regulate the heat, it can take two years to become a master pizzaolo.
Every year the company takes one part of the operation and tries to become 10 percent better.
"Tomatos one year ... salt, then we geek out on salt," Puckett said.
Every pizza is put beneath a camera system: PizzaCam. Managers spot-check and grade each pie for quality.
"Quality. The reason we do well is we make pizzas that people crave," Puckett said.