Sylvia Rector, a Detroit Free Press Restaurant Critic, has a nice little piece in the Freep about a shortage of pizza pans around the state.
The pizza pan of choice for local restaurants is a blue steel pan that was once made in West Virginia.
The pans were never intended for baking. They were designed to hold small parts in factories.
Overtime the pans "became the pan of choice for nearly every big name in Detroit-style pizza" (Rector describes Detroit -style pizza like this "dough for the thick but airy crust, absurd amounts of cheese and ladles of rich, long-simmered sauce").
But the company moved its operation to Mexico, and they haven't been able to get production up and running.
Pizza makers were distraught. They needed the pans. From the article:
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.
One pizza maker couldn't wait. So he took it upon himself to start making the pans in Michigan.
Eugene Jett, co-founder of Jet's Pizza, says he found a manufacturer that would do it:
"They're cutting them as we speak...The first thing is for me to get my pans...It took me a long time to figure out how to get them done...But I decided then, I will build my own pans."
Rector writes that if the manufacturer thinks the pans will be profitable, they might put the pans into full production.
Perhaps another sign that Michigan is diversifying it's economy.
