--- title: "Before You Buy a Second Oven, Prove the First One Is the Bottleneck" description: "A new deck starts around $14,000 before the gas line, the hood, and the person who has to run it. A 15-minute count on a Friday night tells you whether the oven is really what's slowing you down." canonical_url: https://ovenscars.com/articles/is-a-second-oven-worth-it/ author: "Oven Scars Editorial" publisher: "Oven Scars" section: "Operations" date_published: 2026-10-14T00:00:00.000Z tags: ["ovens", "equipment", "throughput", "capacity"] word_count: 1014 reading_time_minutes: 8 license: "CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 — cite as \"Oven Scars\" and link the canonical URL" --- # Before You Buy a Second Oven, Prove the First One Is the Bottleneck *A new deck starts around $14,000 before the gas line, the hood, and the person who has to run it. A 15-minute count on a Friday night tells you whether the oven is really what's slowing you down.* **Operator takeaway:** For the next two Fridays, put someone at the oven from 6 to 8 p.m. Count pies loaded in the busiest 15 minutes and note where pies wait: in front of the oven, or after it. Multiply the count by four, add 20%, and compare it to your oven's realistic hourly output. Get quotes only if demand beats capacity and the queue is in front of the oven. Middleby's own online store lists a single-deck Bakers Pride Y-600 at [$14,414](https://shop.middleby.com/bakers-pride-y-600-superdeck-series-gas-freestanding-deck-oven-1-deck-lightstone-figrament-cooking-surface-propane-120000-btu.html) and a Middleby Marshall PS540G gas conveyor at [$20,183](https://shop.middleby.com/middleby-marshall-ps540g-gas-freestanding-conveyor-oven-impingement-heat-std-single-belt-1-oven-natural-gas-110000-btu.html). Both are U.S. starting prices, before freight, a gas line, or installation. That's the number on the quote. It isn't the cost of a second oven, and it isn't the real question. The real question is whether your oven is what's slowing down Friday night. Plenty of shops buy one before they check. ## Capacity is napkin math, so do the napkin math Equipment dealer KaTom publishes a [sizing method](https://www.katom.com/learning-center/pizza-oven-sizes-how-to-size-output-and-space.html) that's worth borrowing even though it comes from someone who sells ovens. Count the pies you sell in your busiest 15 minutes and multiply by four. Then add a 20% cushion. In KaTom's example, [18 pies in the peak 15 minutes projects to 72 an hour and a target of about 87](https://www.katom.com/learning-center/pizza-oven-sizes-how-to-size-output-and-space.html). Then do the oven side. A deck that holds six pies on an eight-minute bake turns 7.5 times an hour, so it can bake [45 pies in theory. At a realistic 80% utilization, that's about 36](https://www.katom.com/learning-center/pizza-oven-sizes-how-to-size-output-and-space.html). A gap like 87 against 36 is an oven problem. A gap of a few pies is usually fixed by how you load the oven and stagger the orders, not by buying another one. [Conveyors move more pies](/articles/pizza-oven-types-compared/). Daniel Estrada, CEO of the repair platform 86 Repairs, told PMQ that a conveyor [can produce about 80 pizzas per hour](https://www.pmq.com/pizza-oven-tips/). Foodservice Equipment & Supplies' conveyor guide puts large models at [about 100 pizzas an hour per oven, medium models at 75, and small units at 20 to 25](https://fesmag.com/ServiceInsights/15546-the-quarterly-product-knowledge-guide-conveyor-ovens-2018), and notes that high-volume operators typically run two medium ovens. Those are rated numbers. Your pie size, toppings, and bake time decide the real one. Single deck (Bakers Pride Y-600): [$14,414 starting, 120,000 Btu/h](https://shop.middleby.com/bakers-pride-y-600-superdeck-series-gas-freestanding-deck-oven-1-deck-lightstone-figrament-cooking-surface-propane-120000-btu.html) · Gas conveyor (Middleby Marshall PS540G): [$20,183 starting, 110,000 Btu/h](https://shop.middleby.com/middleby-marshall-ps540g-gas-freestanding-conveyor-oven-impingement-heat-std-single-belt-1-oven-natural-gas-110000-btu.html) · Conveyor output: [about 80 pies/hour](https://www.pmq.com/pizza-oven-tips/) (86 Repairs, via PMQ) · New hood: [$950–$1,200 per linear foot](https://www.ambientedge.com/faqs/how-much-does-it-cost-to-install-a-kitchen-hood-in-a-restaurant/) (Ambient Edge, contractor estimate) · Average repair: [$775 conveyor, $552 deck](https://www.pmq.com/pizza-oven-tips/) (86 Repairs, via PMQ). ## A second oven only fixes an oven problem Stand at the oven during peak and watch where pies wait. If dressed pies are stacking up on the makeline waiting for stone or belt space, the oven is the bottleneck. If pies come out on time and then wait at the cut table, the boxing station, or for a driver, a second oven just builds that line up faster. The usual culprits upstream are the same ones we covered in [the menu item slowing your line](/articles/the-menu-item-slowing-your-line/): walks off the makeline and mid-bake touches. Those cost nothing to fix. An oven costs five figures. Decks add a labor question too. Estrada's point to PMQ was that deck ovens [need an experienced operator to hold consistent quality](https://www.pmq.com/pizza-oven-tips/), because the back runs hotter and someone has to manage placement and timing. A second deck at peak usually means a second skilled person on the oven at peak. [Put that wage in the math](/pizzeria-playbook/labor-by-daypart/) before you sign. A second oven doesn't fix a slow kitchen. It fixes a slow oven, and only if the oven is what's slow. ## Price the whole install, not the box **The hood.** FES notes that [current mechanical codes require venting for conveyor ovens](https://fesmag.com/ServiceInsights/15546-the-quarterly-product-knowledge-guide-conveyor-ovens-2018), and that [the exhaust hood shouldn't have to change if ovens of the same size are added](https://fesmag.com/ServiceInsights/15546-the-quarterly-product-knowledge-guide-conveyor-ovens-2018) as a stack. Bakers Pride builds the Y-600 frame [fully welded to allow for double-stacking](https://bakerspride.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/y-600_y-602_y-800_y-802_deck-ovens-spec-sheet-min.pdf). So the cheap way to add an oven is up, not out. Going out means more hood. One HVAC contractor estimates a new commercial hood at [$950 to $1,200 per linear foot, or about $10,000 for ten feet](https://www.ambientedge.com/faqs/how-much-does-it-cost-to-install-a-kitchen-hood-in-a-restaurant/), before [permits](/articles/pizza-shop-permits-and-licenses/). Confirm with your local inspector before anyone quotes you. **The gas.** That Y-600 is rated at [120,000 Btu an hour](https://bakerspride.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/y-600_y-602_y-800_y-802_deck-ovens-spec-sheet-min.pdf). The EIA figures natural gas at [1,036 Btu per cubic foot](https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/units-and-calculators/), and the U.S. average commercial gas price was [$13.03 per thousand cubic feet in July 2026](https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/n3020us3m.htm). Burning flat out for 10 hours, that deck would use about $15 of gas a day, or roughly $450 over 30 days. Treat that as a ceiling: a thermostat-controlled deck cycles, and nobody publishes a real duty cycle for a working pizzeria. Your utility bill after 60 days is the real number. ## The case nobody prices: the night the only oven dies Estrada told PMQ that [an oven being down one night "might mean missing weekend sales by 50% or more,"](https://www.pmq.com/pizza-oven-tips/) and that the average deck repair [takes three times longer to resolve](https://www.pmq.com/pizza-oven-tips/) than a conveyor repair. If you run on one oven, a single Friday failure is an expense you're already carrying. You just haven't been billed for it yet. That's a real argument for a second oven. It shouldn't be the only one. If the peak count says you have room, a maintenance plan and a repair tech's cell number are cheaper insurance than a $14,000 backup. For the next two Fridays, put someone at the oven from 6 to 8 p.m. with a clipboard. Count pies loaded in the busiest 15 minutes, and note whether pies are waiting to go in or waiting after they come out. Multiply the count by four, add 20%, and compare it to your oven's realistic output (theoretical pies per hour × 0.8). If demand beats capacity and the queue is in front of the oven, get quotes, starting with a stacked unit under your existing hood. If not, fix the queue where it actually is. The honest limitation: nobody publishes how many orders a pizzeria loses to a slow oven, and there's still no industry benchmark for pies per oven hour in real shops. The closest data point is customer patience. In a Talker Research survey of 2,000 U.S. adults for Meals on Wheels America, people said they [start getting impatient after 29 minutes](https://talkerresearch.com/how-long-should-food-delivery-take/) when the restaurant is within 10 miles. That tells you how long they'll wait. It doesn't tell you how many of them stopped ordering. Your own peak-hour count is the only number that answers it for your shop. ## Sources cited - https://shop.middleby.com/bakers-pride-y-600-superdeck-series-gas-freestanding-deck-oven-1-deck-lightstone-figrament-cooking-surface-propane-120000-btu.html - https://shop.middleby.com/middleby-marshall-ps540g-gas-freestanding-conveyor-oven-impingement-heat-std-single-belt-1-oven-natural-gas-110000-btu.html - https://www.katom.com/learning-center/pizza-oven-sizes-how-to-size-output-and-space.html - https://www.pmq.com/pizza-oven-tips/ - https://fesmag.com/ServiceInsights/15546-the-quarterly-product-knowledge-guide-conveyor-ovens-2018 - https://www.ambientedge.com/faqs/how-much-does-it-cost-to-install-a-kitchen-hood-in-a-restaurant/ - https://bakerspride.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/y-600_y-602_y-800_y-802_deck-ovens-spec-sheet-min.pdf - https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/units-and-calculators/ - https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/n3020us3m.htm - https://talkerresearch.com/how-long-should-food-delivery-take/ --- Published by [Oven Scars](https://ovenscars.com/), news and ideas for pizzeria owners. Editorial standards: https://ovenscars.com/editorial-standards/.