Design mockup. North Main Pizza Co. is an invented business. The address, the phone number, the prices and the wait times on this page are made up for the purpose of showing a layout.

The only number we get asked

What time to call

A twelve inch cheese takes thirteen minutes from the moment somebody picks up the phone. On a Friday at half six there are fifty five minutes of other people's pizzas in front of it. Below is the kitchen's own clock, hour by hour, so you can dial backwards from the minute you want the box in your hands.

Dial back from your pickup minute
Box on the counter at	Dial by, Tue to Thu and Sun	Dial by, Fri and Sat	Tickets ahead of yours, Fri and Sat
4:30 pm	4:15	4:15	15 min
5:00 pm	4:40	4:35	25 min
5:30 pm	5:05	4:55	35 min
6:00 pm	5:30	5:10	50 min
6:30 pm	6:00	5:35	55 min
7:00 pm	6:35	6:15	45 min
7:30 pm	7:10	6:55	35 min
8:00 pm	7:45	7:35	25 min
8:30 pm	8:15	8:10	20 min

Call (816) 555-0142

One filled circle is five minutes of tickets already hanging on the rail. The two dial columns already include the thirteen minutes your own pizza needs. They do not include your drive, which is the next section down.

A just-baked pepperoni pizza resting on a scratched stainless steel table with a steel rocker knife beside it, cheese still glossy and oil pooled in the pepperoni cups.

Thirteen minutes, itemised

Where the minutes go

Nothing here can be hurried without showing up in the pizza. This is the whole of it, in order, with the part that happens three days before you ring at the top.

01 · Three days before you call

The dough sits in the cold for 72 hours

Dough balls go into the walk-in at 38 degrees on Monday and are not touched until Thursday. Cold slows the yeast right down, which does two things worth having. The gluten relaxes, so the dough opens under your hands instead of springing back and tearing. And the long slow ferment leaves acids and aromatics in the crumb that a dough mixed this morning simply has not had time to make.

It also means we run out. When Saturday's tubs are empty they are empty, and there is no way to make more before Tuesday.

Cooler
38°F

In the cold
72 hrs

Minutes on your ticket
0:00
02 · The rail

Your ticket goes on the end of the line, not the front

Tickets are baked in the order they were answered. There is no queue jumping for a bigger order and none for a regular. The number in the last column of the board is simply how many minutes of other people's tickets are hanging on the rail when you ring at that hour.

Two things move that number. A school night with a home game empties us by half five. A rainy Friday holds the peak an extra half hour.

Build a 12 inch
1:30

Screens on the line
7

Friday peak
6:30 pm
03 · The oven

Seven minutes on a 550 degree deck

This is a stone deck oven, not a conveyor. A conveyor is easier to run because the belt sets the time for you, but it heats from the air and leaves the bottom pale. Stone puts heat straight into the underside, which is why the base holds up on the way home.

The trade is that stone takes about four minutes to get its heat back after a pull, so on a full deck the last pizza in the row bakes a shade longer than the first. That is normal and it is why we do not promise a bake to the second.

Deck
550°F

12 inch bake
7:00

Stone recovery
4:00
04 · The table

Three minutes on the steel before anybody cuts it

A pizza cut straight out of the oven loses its toppings to the knife. The cheese has not set, so the wheel drags it into a ridge and the first two slices come out bare. Three minutes on a cold steel table fixes that, and it is the one part of the thirteen minutes people ask us to skip.

It is also the reason your box is warm rather than scalding when you pick it up. That is a finished pizza, not a late one.

Rest
3:00

Cut and box
0:40

Ticket total
13 min

Two plain brown pizza boxes stacked on a car passenger seat at night, lit by the dashboard and the smear of oncoming headlights.

The part we do not control

The box is not an oven

A closed corrugated box holds heat well and holds steam better, and steam is the problem. Water leaving the cheese and the sauce has nowhere to go, condenses on the lid, and drops back onto the crust. Ten minutes of that is fine. Twenty five minutes of it is a soft rim and a base that folds.

So we cut the vent slots by hand and we will happily leave a pizza uncut and unboxed on a tray if you are eating it in the car park. If you are driving more than twenty minutes, crack the lid an inch as soon as you set it down. It costs a little heat and saves the crust, and that is the trade worth making.

From the counter at 214 N Main
Where you are going	Drive	What arrives
Liberty square	3 min	Exactly what left the table.
Kearney	14 min	Rim softens at the tip. Crack the lid.
Gladstone	16 min	Rim softens at the tip. Crack the lid.
Smithville	20 min	Order it well done and uncut.
Excelsior Springs	26 min	Honestly, it will not be the same pizza.

Four sizes

Drawn at the size they actually are

Menus print the four numbers in a row and let you assume the gaps are even. They are not. Every one of these circles is drawn to the same scale as the others, and the square inches underneath are the real reason a sixteen feeds a room and a twelve does not.

10″

$1179 sq in
6 slices · 6 min bake
12″

$15113 sq in
8 slices · 7 min bake
14″

$19154 sq in
8 slices · 8 min bake
16″

$23201 sq in
12 slices · 9 min bake

1.78×

A sixteen inch is not a third bigger than a twelve. It is seventy eight percent bigger, because the area goes up with the square of the diameter while the price on the board goes up in a straight line. Two twelves cost thirty dollars and give you 226 square inches. One sixteen plus one ten costs thirty four and gives you 280.

6 to 9

Bake time climbs with size as well, so a sixteen is three minutes longer on the deck than a ten. If everything on your ticket is a sixteen, add three minutes to whatever the board told you. Toppings are $1.75 on a ten and $3.25 on a sixteen, and the fifth one is free on any size.

Before you order it

The things that add minutes

Pan crust, any size A deep pan needs its own proof in the tin and a longer, lower bake. Worth it, but not a Friday at six thirty decision. +9 min
Well done Two more minutes on the deck. Ask for it if you are driving further than Gladstone. +2 min
Double cheese, or more than five toppings More water on the pie means longer to set the middle. The rim will be ready before the centre either way. +2 min
A salad or wings on the same ticket These finish at different times to a pizza, so we hold the whole order until the last thing is up. Ordering a salad with a pan pizza means the salad waits nine minutes. +0 to 9 min

One more thing nobody puts on a menu. Fresh tomato, pineapple and raw mushroom are all mostly water, and any two of them on the same twelve inch will leave the centre wet no matter how long it bakes. We will still make it. We will also say so on the phone, and we will suggest putting one of them on the other half.

Carry-out only, no delivery, no app

Ring the counter

(816) 555-0142

Hours

MondayClosed
Tue to Thu4:00 to 9:00
Friday4:00 to 10:00
Saturday4:00 to 10:00
Sunday4:00 to 8:00

Where

214 N Main Street
Liberty, Missouri 64068

Two doors north of the old bank building. Park behind and come in the side door, the front three spaces fill by five.

Have this ready when we pick up

The minute you want it on the counter
Size, crust, toppings, in that order
Cut or uncut
A first name we can read back