Cafés & Delis

Small sites are usually a flue problem before they are an oven problem. The dome you want will very often fit; the extraction it needs may not.

When the flue decides it

A wood oven needs 200 to 250 mm of insulated flue routed to above the roofline. A gas oven needs 150 to 180 mm. In a mall unit, a shared building, or a café with a difficult roof, that difference is frequently what makes a brick oven possible at all.

Where a wood chimney genuinely cannot be routed, an LPG dome gives you the same firebrick floor and the same bake with a far simpler extraction path and no fuel store to keep dry. How flues are sized and routed.

Sizing for a small floor

An 80 to 100 cm dome still turns 25 to 50 pizzas an hour, which is more than most café trade requires, and occupies a footprint a constrained kitchen can actually give up. Our 90 cm build reaches temperature in about an hour, which suits a site that fires from cold rather than trading seven days.

Remember to count the working space as well as the oven. You need room to stand in front with a peel and somewhere to set a pizza down — an oven wedged into a corner you cannot work is the wrong oven in the right place.

Counter-front as a feature

In a café the oven is usually visible, which makes the finish part of the fit-out rather than an afterthought. A mosaic or tiled dome behind the counter earns attention from walk-in trade in a way that equipment tucked out of sight never does.

Beyond pizza

A brick oven in a café is underused if it only makes pizza at lunch. The falling heat curve carries flatbreads, roasted vegetables, baked dishes, and bread the following morning — all on heat you have already paid for.

For sites where that mixed use is the main case, a barrel vault takes standard trays in a way a round dome does not.

Fitting out around trade

Small sites rarely have the luxury of closing for a build. Where access allows, a finished oven delivered on a stand cuts site time to a day or two because construction and curing happen in our workshop while you carry on trading. The access checklist is here — ground floor, vehicle access, and a clear 900 mm route are the usual determinants.