The Big 2026 Pizza Night Changes

  

Read this and you’ll be in the know!

This year is the 20th season of Pizza Nights at Orchard Hill Breadworks. The photos above represent just a tiny sliver of its history, and while this piece isn’t a dive into the past – maybe a retrospective next year at this time 🤔 – we bet you still want to know about those pictures…

1. The first oven was under a tent.
2. Everything but the picnicking happened in the bakery parking lot, without shelter and in all weather.
3. This was how it was for years before the pavilion was built!

At the end of every season we try to imagine ways to smooth out and improve pizza night. We’re making changes this year that will start before the season begins and will continue throughout the summer.

Three areas we’ve identified for improvement:

1 – RESERVATIONS:

Getting a reservation can be stressful. In fact so many people were getting online at 9AM every Saturday to make their reservation that the crush of orders outpaced the systems ability to accurately track when all the crusts were sold. This created headaches for guests and hosts alike!

• For the first three weeks of May, the reservation system will open, allowing everyone the chance to book and purchase reservations for any night, any time slot.
• These advance reservations will be paid in full, are not refundable, and will be date and time specific.
• There will be no restrictions during the “pre sale” but we imagine it will serve two groups especially well:
  • Those who know they will attend every week.
  • Those who have a large group that might only attend once or twice during the whole summer, but know the date they’d like to attend and can coordinate that with everyone in their party to make arrangements far ahead.
• We understand that there are limitations inherent in this offering, for instance paying for a whole season’s cost could be prohibitive, but the old reservation system will be active as normal beginning on Saturday, May 30th, before the first pizza night and throughout the rest of the summer. Our intention is simply to reduce the Saturday morning rush.

2 – LINES:

From 5:30 onward, the line gets quite long. We love that new friends are made and that conversations with old friends don’t have to be rushed, but we take wait times seriously and are taking steps to shorten them.

• The biggest bottleneck at the oven are ironically the smallest pizzas. (Gluten free, baked in pans)
  • Despite their size, they disrupt the steady flow and are very difficult to get the bake just right because the crust is hidden from my view by the pan.
  • Moving forward, all gluten free pizzas will be baked indoors in the bread oven.
  • This oven is also easier to prevent gluten contamination and is at a temperature more appropriate for gluten free crusts.
• Plain cheese pizza ready at arrival.
  • Pizza night has always been a DIY event, highlighting our guests creativity and experimentation.
  • But why not skip the line and pick up a plain pizza hot out of the oven?
  • Just to be clear, we’ll never tell anyone they can’t make plain cheese pizza to be baked in the pavilion, but…
  • We will be offering plain cheese pizzas, made by our staff and ready for pickup and picnicking upon arrival.
  • This could eliminate upwards of 75 pizzas each night, meaning fewer people in line and less pizzas needing to be baked in the outdoor oven.

3 – LOADS:

Except for 13 Tuesdays during the summer, Orchard Hill is responsible for the physical needs of around a dozen people. This means that hosting seven to eight hundred guests for pizza night requires us to be creative about being responsible for the physical needs of a hundreds more. We’ve learned to absorb just about all of the impacts, but there are a couple areas we’re asking for your help.

• Bottles and cans at the end of a night overflow two 55 gallon drums, the amount we typically handle in a month or more.
  • This year we’re asking guests to carry in and carry out.
  • If it came from home, we ask it return with you. If it was purchased here, we’re glad to handle it ourselves.
• Room to roam.
  • Seeing children running free across the lawns and around the pizza garden will always be among the highlights of pizza night for all of us.
  • We’re making all of our guests aware that unsupervised time at the playground across the road and any area out of sight from the Pavilion is not allowed.
  • With adults present, the Center at Orchard Hill is happy for the playground to be used during pizza night.

We are excited for the season to begin in just a few weeks! Please share this link with everyone you know who attends pizza night and see you soon.

Orchard Hill Breadworks, Pizza Night HQ