stevez wrote:This looks like the oven is wood fired. Did you see any evidence of coal being used in the oven?

chicago station wrote:Details:
Cook time around 2:30 minutes. Oven floor around 700F. Mix of coal and wood.

Coal and wood according to Chicago Station.

Enjoy,
Gary

G Wiv wrote:

stevez wrote:This looks like the oven is wood fired. Did you see any evidence of coal being used in the oven?

chicago station wrote:Details:
Cook time around 2:30 minutes. Oven floor around 700F. Mix of coal and wood.

Coal and wood according to Chicago Station.

Enjoy,
Gary

You know, I was wondering about this myself (not wondering about the pizzas, they look fantastic). I thought that coal is, well, not safe. A coal oven does not burn BY the food. Also, I really thought Chicago outlawed all coal burners absent some significant scrubbers.

Do they mean coal as in burned down wood (i.e., charcoal) or coal as in black lung miners, coal?

Gleam-- I was the third guy at the table with TP and PIGMON. The mozz in question was mozzarella Fresca, from California. Having it melted on my otherwise stellar margherita confirmed for me that I'm not a fan of that company's stuff. Its use does show a commitment to using objectively pricey/high quality stuff. Frankly, it melted like Velveeta.

I'll defer to the pizza authorities, but I believe we all enjoyed the pies (a sausage, a white and a 'rita) very much. Crust was good. Tomatoes were good. (Hard to understand the lunchroom reference, unless the lunchroom was in Caserta, as they are simply crushed Italian tomatoes.)

I'd like to see a truly local pie with ricotta, mozz' and meats coming from local purveyors (Riviera sopressatta, for example).

Maybe it's almost time to put the criticism of Chicago pizza to bed, if it was ever even legit. It's a testiment to the people of this fair city that they welcome so many styles of pizza to share the turf with the local standards. At this point, one can get any number of good versions of regional (within Italy and within the USA) pies. Neopolitan, Roman, Albanian, New York, New Haven, Chicago, bakery, etc. That's not necessarily true elsewhere. And in LA, a place that I know has a long history of generally atrocious pizza (I'll give 'em burgers and many other things), well, one good place opens and ...

That was you? For some reason I thought you were someone completely different. Geez, I'm sorry for not realizing it!

I agree entirely on the cheese. It just wasn't good, even compared to the belgioso fresh mozzarella costco sells.

I can't verify the pizza, as I ended up asking for my money back because I could not actually GET a pizza after more than 90 minutes.

It was extremely busy, and I understand and have patience for a new place. I was told 25 minutes. I asked if they would rather call my cell when it was done (I live a block away) and was told no, too complicated. I saw Gary and his party, they enjoyed the pizza. I came back 45 minutes later and the pizza was not ready. I can live with this. HOWEVER, ran into some other friends that were seated, not even there when I ordered. I went back to the counter and was told at least another 15 minutes. Their pizza came out about 10 minutes later, I sat with them while they enjoyed it, and another half an hour and my take out pizza had still not been fired.

So obviously, if you are not sitting in the restaurant, (even though I was for at least the last half an hour) your order gets bumped to the back of the line. I was the third or fourth person now standing in a line just to get their money back after more than an hour and a half. Not a good way to start out.

My dine in friends, the ones that were not even there when I ordered and long gone before I demanded my money back, did say it was one of the best pizzas they ever had.

But, even if your coal burning oven cooks a pizza in 3 minutes, it does not have a brain. Someone in this operation needs to GET A PLAN. When there is a line of people waiting for their money back, give them their money back and give them coupons for the next IMPROVED experience to be on the house. Otherwise, you are sinking your own ship before you even leave the port.

Maybe I am being too harsh, but I don't have much respect for business owners that have not thought through all scenarios of their game plan.

Cinnamon Girl wrote:I can't verify the pizza, as I ended up asking for my money back because I could not actually GET a pizza after more than 90 minutes.

It was extremely busy, and I understand and have patience for a new place. I was told 25 minutes. I asked if they would rather call my cell when it was done (I live a block away) and was told no, too complicated. I saw Gary and his party, they enjoyed the pizza. I came back 45 minutes later and the pizza was not ready. I can live with this. HOWEVER, ran into some other friends that were seated, not even there when I ordered. I went back to the counter and was told at least another 15 minutes. Their pizza came out about 10 minutes later, I sat with them while they enjoyed it, and another half an hour and my take out pizza had still not been fired.

So obviously, if you are not sitting in the restaurant, (even though I was for at least the last half an hour) your order gets bumped to the back of the line. I was the third or fourth person now standing in a line just to get their money back after more than an hour and a half. Not a good way to start out.

My dine in friends, the ones that were not even there when I ordered and long gone before I demanded my money back, did say it was one of the best pizzas they ever had.

But, even if your coal burning oven cooks a pizza in 3 minutes, it does not have a brain. Someone in this operation needs to GET A PLAN. When there is a line of people waiting for their money back, give them their money back and give them coupons for the next IMPROVED experience to be on the house. Otherwise, you are sinking your own ship before you even leave the port.

Maybe I am being too harsh, but I don't have much respect for business owners that have not thought through all scenarios of their game plan.

I just got back from attempting to eat in at Coal Fire and it seems like the pendulum has perhaps swung back the other way and even gotten worse. My friend and I were seated at about 7:30 and placed our order a few minutes later. 15 minutes go by. Then 20, 30, 45, until finally about an hour later, I went up to the counter only to find that they had totally lost our order. After the presumed owner took our order and informed us that we would then be second in line, we got our money back and left. His explaination was that they were swamped w/ take out orders but even as we sat there, we saw at least 2 or 3 people come in, wait at the counter virtually unacknowledged for 10 minutes and the leave.

This was after another table waited probably 45 minutes for 2 salads, which they received only after complaining and then got their money back and left. At one point, there were 6 tables of 2 or 4 people that had been there at least 45 minutes who had no food whatsoever. We were literally there for over an hour and saw 2 tables get served.

We were trying to be understanding by waiting so long w/o complaining due to it being only the 1st week open. Several other tables had already complained and I could tell they were in the weeds even as I placed my order as the pizza maker had 2 pies come out of the oven yet no tickets to go along with them. It was seriously like an episode of "Hell's Kitchen" where the voiceover comes on and says "It has now been 75 minutes and only 3 tables have been served appetizers". I kinda wish GR was back there screaming "get moving you f-ing donkeys !".

As my friend, who has worked as a server in fine dining for years and years said to the owner, they really needed to just comp people's meals at that point and eat the $5 cost as a token of goodwill. At the end of the day, offering someone another 10 minute wait or your money back aren't the correct options. And, it really is the job of the "waitress" who was there to take note that we and 8 other people have been sitting on our thumbs for an hour and take it upon herself to at least acknowledge the situation. And, we did find it odd that eat-in patrons still had to go up to the counter to order, and pay in advance. Someone had a serious brain cramp coming up w/ that plan.

We'll try going back or getting takeout once they get the kinks out. Hopefully it will as the pizza we did see looked pretty good.

Wow. I walked in just before the crest of this flaming shit tsunami made land. Got there at 7:10, chatted a bit with Gary, Ellen, Pigmon and Trix, ordered my pie, sat down with them again ... spent some time chatting with Cinnamon Girl, too. I got my pizza and left around 7:45 (yes, I had to carry out, knowing that would compromise the results). I could see things starting to go wrong while I stood there waiting for my pizza ... definite confusion in the kitchen, mixed up orders, the waitress and the kitchen came to words (I can't possibly say who was to blame, but suffice to say, the kitchen was blaming her and she was blaming the kitchen). Like I say, I guess I got out in the nick of time. Too bad, because my pizza (spicy sausage) was really fantastic, even after the 20+ minute ride home.

I am so glad I got there yesterday. Wow.

tem wrote:And, we did find it odd that eat-in patrons still had to go up to the counter to order, and pay in advance. Someone had a serious brain cramp coming up w/ that plan.

Could it be that the "pay in advance" plan was cooked up in order to keep disgusted customers from bolting as readily as they otherwise might? (In which case it was a stroke of genius.)

Oh come on, folks, let's cut them some slack. If they're slammed beyond their wildest opening week dreams, the reason is probably right here, or at least a good part of it, so let's not use the same Internet to build them up and tear them apart within 24 hours. It's fine to talk about issues, but it's not like they set out to get so backed up they screw things up. Check back in two weeks, give them a chance to work out their processes, and judge the pizza and the service then. They're learning under coal fire.

like I said, we were willing to cut them some slack. And I was going to mention the "LTH effect" in my previous post. But as Cinnamon Girl and I said, they should have comped people's meals. We would have waited even if we had just gotten a free salad out of it.

We stopped in tonight and (wisely apparently) actually left before placing an order because we could tell things were backed up. This after talking to the man at the counter and receiving rather brusque treatment.
While waiting in line a while to (not) place an order, things seemed very chaotic and borderline out of control.

I'm sympathetic to being slammed on your 3rd day open, but if you are not yet on top of your game, why charge full game prices? Give out coupons to people, discount the pizzas, say "please bear with us while we find out feet, in exchange for your patience all prices will be 15% off and please provide us feedback on these comments cards, etc." There are ways to deal with it.

Our experience, let alone the much worse ones it sounds like others had, will definitely keep us away for a while. Not writing the place off permanently or anything, but we're in no hurry to opt for something other than Spacca Napoli anytime soon.

I had a good experience at 6pm. Obviously they need to either get rid of takeout or limit it to before 6:30pm or something until they get their sea legs. I agree with Mike G: give them a few weeks.

I don't understand this "they should have comped us our meals" thing. You should have shown up when they weren't busy if you wanted a new restaurant to be able to handle things efficiently. It's irrational to expect otherwise. Sure, it's not good that your experience sucked, and they shouldn't get a pass, but if someone leaves their keys in their car they're at least partially to blame if their car gets stolen.

riddlemay wrote:Could it be that the "pay in advance" plan was cooked up in order to keep disgusted customers from bolting as readily as they otherwise might? (In which case it was a stroke of genius.)

Riddlemay,

Our perceptions are so completely different I am often amazed and, in this instance, slightly disconcerted, by your viewpoints.

Regards,
Gary

LTH,

Was there Thursday at 6:30, service was fine, people were friendly, LTHers were in evidence and the pizza, which is what Coal Fire is all about, was Ter-F'n-ific! I understand there were service problems later in the evening, but it's day-3 not day-30.

We had three pizza's, Napoli w/anchovy, Sausage and my favorite of the evening, White Pizza with it's mix of mozzarella, ricotta, pecorino romano, oregano, basil, black pepper and garlic olive oil. I enjoyed Coal Fire's pizza to such an extent I already have my next pie planned out, ricotta with sausage.

Coal Fire Napoli (tomato sauce, mozzarella, anchovies)


Call me an optimist, but I have a really good feeling about Coal Fire, they care deeply about what goes on the plate and, as evidenced by J giving Pigmon a little sample of something he was working on, have good customer skills when they are not being slammed beyond all expectation on the 3rd day in operation.

J (L) Pigmon (R)


Enjoy,
Gary

Coal Fire
1321 W. Grand Ave
Chicago, IL
312-226-2625
5pm-11, Closed Monday

Gary,

It's hard to tell from the photos - what is the diameter of the pie?

Thanks,

Bill/SFNM

extramsg wrote:I don't understand this "they should have comped us our meals" thing. You should have shown up when they weren't busy if you wanted a new restaurant to be able to handle things efficiently. It's irrational to expect otherwise.

This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It's basic customer service -- make the customers happy, ESPECIALLY if it's your own damn fault in the first place. Don't make it out to be the customer's fault that they showed up and expected to get a 3 minute pizza in less than an hour or a salad on their table in < 45 minutes. And they completely lost our order on top of all that !

Yes, it's new place. Yes, it was rush hour. But they had absolutely no clue last night and a little goodwill/common sense could have gone a *long* way.

Bill/SFNM wrote:It's hard to tell from the photos - what is the diameter of the pie?

Bill,

Menu, which I have in front of me, says 14 inches, it's a really good pie. Come visit Chicago, first round of both Coal Fire and Spacca Napoli pizzas are on me.

Enjoy,
Gary

I'm mostly shocked that Jay cut his hair, barely recognized him in the picture.

make the customers happy, ESPECIALLY if it's your own damn fault in the first place.

How is it their fault if we write about them on the Internet and then descend on them in droves?

The Internet is really good at two things-- getting the word out, and piling on. If we have the power to overwhelm somebody in their first week of business, and it sure sounds like we did or at least contributed substantially, then let's at least recognize that we did that, and not beat up on them en masse. Yeah, they probably should have done any number of things, but in a mad rush when you're brand new is not when anybody clearly rethinks their business model. I think the warnings about what to expect there this week are well taken, but I don't quite see the indignation.

Now let's get ready to pounce on Crust...

Mike G wrote:How is it their fault if we write about them on the Internet and then descend on them in droves?

When a restaurant has 6 tables full of people sitting there with no food, take out customers leaving in disgust, takes 45 minutes to get a salad on a table, loses orders and then doesn't have the customer service sense to do something beyond "wait longer or leave with your money back", it is NOT the fault of the Internets.

Anyways, I won't comment on it anymore until I actually get to taste the pizza.

Seems to me that the wheels started coming off the cart about the time Pigmon barged his way into the kitchen to beg for scraps. They never recovered.

G Wiv wrote:Riddlemay,

Our perceptions are so completely different I am often amazed and, in this instance, slightly disconcerted, by your viewpoints.

Hi Gary. I don't mean either to amaze or disconcert you. On Coal Fire my perceptions are based entirely on reading this thread. Its 48 posts have taken me on a journey from being excited and eager to try it to not wanting to get within a quarter-mile of it. When I read about customers having hellish experiences, and the hellish experiences are more than one-offs or flukes, my empathy is with them, even though I haven't suffered. The management of a new place probably deserve some empathy, too, but my instinct is to feel for the customer, since it's easier for me to imagine myself in his place.

On reflection, while tem said that it was odd that eat-in patrons have to go up to the counter to order and pay in advance, and while it seemed odd to me too when I read it, I can think of other places that do this. So I guess it's not that strange. But I'm sure it does have the effect--it's almost inarguable I would think--of making a disgruntled, long-waiting customer linger longer than he otherwise might. It's easier to cut your losses when there are no losses. Although, come to think of it, even if I hadn't paid in advance, I wouldn't ever get up and walk out of a place without making it known, settling up for whatever I had consumed, etc. And neither would any LTHer. So maybe what I wrote didn't make sense. And worse, was needlessly snide. Sorry.

I have to say, I do think it's overstating to say they were slammed. When we walked in around 7, there were still some open tables. Maybe they were getting a truly enormous volume of take-out orders and that accounts for things, but based on what I could tell, they were maybe at most 75% capacity. It's not like there were lines out the door.

Which brings me to another worry: if and when this place gets truly slammed, the table shuffle will become interesting. Hopefully they will run it like Hot Doug, and be mindful of people grabbing tables before their food is ready, or before ordering. And not run things like, say, Smoque, which on the one time we went there, had people stalking tables as soon as they came in, then sending someone to wait 20 minutes in line to order.

Anyway, sounds like their product is worthy. Hopefully they can hone the process of getting it to customers.

I truly hope they work out the kinks and figure out a way to start churning out pies. I carried out a spicy sausage at about 10:15 last night and it was phenomenal. I was alone in the restaurant with a couple whose pizza had already been served, and the staff. I'm relieved I wasn't there for the dinner rush as it sounds like it was quite an adventure. Watching my pizza being made was true food porn. The oven is visible from the register/waiting area and it is a sight to behold. The orange glow of the wood and coal emanates, assuring you that your pie won't be undercooked. I loved the care that went into turning the pie once it was in the oven to make sure the crust cooked evenly. When my pizza came out I was downright giddy. I live right around the corner and the 2 minute drive seemed to take at least 2 hours. When I opened the box and dug in I could not have been more pleased. The sauce and cheese are not the stars of this pizza. The crust is what will bring me back. It's soft in the middle where most of the toppings are(as an aside right before my pizza was thrown in the oven I was asked if there was enough sausage on it, and there was). The outer crust had some nice caramelized bubbling approaching the edge and a nice meaty outer ring. I was planning on heading back tonight with the girlfriend for some pre-cocktail dinner but may give it a rest and stick to odd hours until the crowds die down. Being that this is my first post, please don't be skeptical that I have a personal investment in Coalfire. I just moved to the city from the burbs and have been trying as many places as I can so hopefully I can become a regular contributor to the boards.

In addition to my experience, I did mention that my friends (not Gary but the other table that got their pizza in a timely manner) said that it was one of the best pizzas they had ever had, and they included their experiences in Rome in their list. For this reason I will probably try again, I was SO excited to have this new place a block from my house.

But on the flip side, I don't think it was because they were slammed from our internet comments, they just had no organizational system that worked. I also saw pizzas set off to the side because they had lost their tickets. I saw my own ticket moved to a different spot each time I asked if my pizza was done, but they all did not seem to be on the same page. Add one more person back there, and get a working system, even as simple as just giving people numbers, and it would all have been handled.

There is another sign just two blocks East on Grand for a new pizzeria, does anyone know anything about this place? I heard rumor it was owned by a D'Amato.

You know...i get the enthusiasm of this crowd to go try a new pizzeria.

We're pretty pizza mad on this site.

But the harshness of the criticism of a new restaurant's ability to serve customers, with only 3 days of practice, just sort of takes me aback!

I mean...most "professional" reviewers won't post reviews of a new place for at least a month or two after opening -- they let them get used to the job first.

Can't we do that? I'm dying to try this pizza -- it looks absolutely amazing, but I'm going to give them a couple of weeks to smooth out the rough edges and figure themselves out. It's only fair, right? Heck, when I started my last job, after 15 years in the business, it still took me 2-3 weeks before I felt up to being scrutinized.

Learning curves are tough! So let's cut these guys a break. The early pictures indicate just an amazing looking product.

s

I was driving by last night at a little after 5:00 PM and was unable to resist the temptation. I walked in and approximately 5 minutes later I was on the way out with a hot Italian sausage pizza. After a three minute drive home, the pizza was delicious. It had a chewier crust than my coal fired pizza standard (Lombardi's) but was outstanding in it's own right. The sauce was very good and there was a good amount of sausage. It might have suffered a bit from the brief ride home, but I will be going back very soon for a dine-in experience. Normally I don't like to go to a place that has only been open a few days, but my curiosity got the best of me. If you expect the place to be running like a well oiled machine, I suggest a visit shortly after opening hour or waiting a few months so they can figure out how to deal with the crowds.

deesher wrote:If you expect the place to be running like a well oiled machine, I suggest a visit shortly after opening hour or waiting a few months so they can figure out how to deal with the crowds.

This raises the question in my mind (which I don't know the answer to): What is standard operating procedure in the days before a restaurant opens, as it prepares to welcome customers? Do they have dry runs? Do they have "by invitation only" free dinners for friends and family?

I know some here are implying it's unreasonable to expect a new place to be running like a well-oiled machine, but is it really? If they're charging money, then I, as a customer, do expect something along the lines of a well-oiled machine, no matter how new or old the place is. "Kinks" are one thing, and very forgivable in a new place, but it sure sounds like Coal House is a lot further away from being well-oiled than that. Could they not have done a better job in readying themselves for business? Not a rhetorical question. Perhaps the answer is, "No, in fact, they couldn't have done any more than they did in preparing themselves for customers." I'm relying on people who know more about it than I do to give me insight.

riddlemay wrote:I know some here are implying it's unreasonable to expect a new place to be running like a well-oiled machine, but is it really? If they're charging money, then I, as a customer, do expect something along the lines of a well-oiled machine, no matter how new or old the place is.

Perhaps this is a case where expectations need to be adjusted.

The bottom line is that for new and/or first-time restaurant owners, even those who do their homework, there's no way to anticipate every potential problem that could possibly come up immediately after you open. And in many situations, certain foreseeable possibilities (getting slammed, running out of food) can be guarded against, but only with the outlay of additional capital. I personally will not hold it against a business, especially in their first few weeks of operation, if they experience capacity issues. And I think that's the way most reasonable customers feel.

The few who show up expecting that the owners should have pre-emptively prevented every foreseeable problem -- even those that were only remotely likely to occur -- demonstrate such a limited understanding, that they are likely unsatisfiable, regardless. I mean, an owner can do everything right and still end up getting a 10-pie order right before an exceptionally demanding customer walks into the shop. That customer will likely have to wait longer than usual, even though the wait had nothing to do with poor planning on the owner's part. Sometimes, shit just happens.

Customers who hold owners accountable for such problems indefinitely are customers that no business owner really wants anyway. And the notion that the customer is always right is total bullshit. Unreasonably demanding customers are never right, regardless of their expectations. The nice thing about selling pizzas is that no single customer is going to make or break you. Piss off a few people naive folks at the beginning and it's very unlikely to affect your business, long-term.

OTOH, good owners who experience problems at the outset will -- and should -- extend goodwill to unhappy customers and offer them incentives to return and give the shop 'another chance.' And, problems that persist for a number of weeks after a place is opened are far less likely to go away than those encountered at the outset. Those, to me, are truly red flags. But what happens at peak times during week 1 of a business's existence doesn't really mean much. As was posted above, professional reviewers give places some grace period before reviewing them. That standard seems quite reasonable to me. If someone chooses to give a place less latitude, it's certainly their perogative. But it doesn't make that person right or their expectations any more reasonable. They may choose to not return. Thankfully, it's very unlikely that the loss of that person's business will mean anything to the owner or his ability to survive over the long haul.

=R=