Allen Ward, right, encourages Roger Hernandez, left, as he makes another pizza at Reggiano's on Melvin Francis Boulevard SW. Roger can make three pizzas in less than a minute. This coach and competitor team will travel to Nashville next week to compete for the title of "World's Fastest Pizza Maker."
Here We Dough Again!
By Sonya Bunty ([email protected])
Pizza makers at your ready! …Get Set! …Go!
Thunk! A large chunk of dough hits a wooden board. White flour flies through the air. Roger Hernandez's hands punch, fling and stretch out a pizza crust ready to receive a ladle of Reggiano's world famous tomato sauce.
"Quicker, Roger, quicker!" screams Allen Ward. "Let's get it on!"
Roger distributes three pizzas worth of sauce in one swoop, smoothing it all out on the return stroke.
"You're the Sauce King, baby!" Ward screamed louder.
Next, Roger showers handfuls of cheese, toppings, and Reggiano's patented secret spice over the sauce. (Nothing hit the floor, I promise!)
"There's a piece of pepperoni at your 6 o'clock," Ward shrieked. "Twelve seconds! I believe in you!"
Roger, 28, is the assistant manager at Reggiano's at the Melvin Francis Boulevard SW location. He can make three pizzas in about 58 seconds but he hopes to decrease that number by a lot when he travels to Nashville later this week to compete for the title of "World's Fastest Pizza Maker."
The event champion will receive a $5,000 scholarship and will do the talk show circuit with appearances on The View and Howard Stern.
"You don't know how important this is for us," Ward said.
It all began five years ago when Roger got a job answering phones at Reggiano's. However, it didn't take him long to make it to the the pizza line. "I needed extra shifts to pay for school," he said.
"When I first saw him, he was making pizzas in just over six minutes," Ward recalled. "I didn't really care at the time," Roger added.
It was his coach, Allen Ward, North Georgia's Reggiano's franchise operations director, who saw Roger's potential. "I looked inside him and saw talent, and it reminded me of my talent. We connected with each other. It was beautiful," Ward whispered.
Ward competed in the same tournament six years ago and was once 14th in the world. But he's since passed on his lucky wooden spatula to Roger.
"If he loses my spatula, he's fired," Ward jokingly warned.
Ward plans to practice with Roger, making anywhere from 100 to 900 pizzas. "The number of actual pizzas will vary depending how long and many times we practice," Ward said. "I have night school some nights, so it's hard," Roger said.
Ward videotapes each practice and compares them to other competitors from his extensive collection of pizza making videos he acquired over the years. "You should see Johnny ‘White Hands' Paletti in the '92 semi-final," Ward recalled enthusiastically. "His speed was blinding. Blinding!"
However, speed isn't the only thing on the menu—quality is also on it. Pizzas must be "deliverable," which means they must "look good, taste good and smell good," or they don't count, Ward said.
Debra Maroney is head organizer of the World's Fastest Pizza Maker competition and is also one of the judges.
"The [pizza makers] take this seriously. It's like an athletic sport to them. Each one has their own warm-up routine, superstitions…there are injuries, too," Maroney said. "Competitors must bring their ‘A' game."
"I've seen pizza makers come and go at Reggiano's, but Roger is something special," Ward said. "I know, because I've competed against the best. But [the W.F.P.M.] won't let me compete anymore, so Roger's got to do it now. He's come a long way since I took him under my wing. He'll do it this time. It won't be like last year."
Last year, Roger's fist attempt at the World's Fastest Pizza Making competition didn't go as planned. His time was close to a two-and-a-half minutes, which was way too long to qualify for the finals.
"My pizza cutter jammed," said Roger. "Ward was really upset."
"I went through a terrible depression afterwards," Ward added. "I hadn't felt that bad since I lost in the finals six years ago."
Debra Maroney said she advises pizza makers to try and relax and have fun, because stress will only lead to failure. "I've seen the world's best make it to the finals and completely forget how to make a pizza," Maroney recalled. "One year a pizza maker tried to bake himself in the oven."
Ward knows that story all too well, because he was the contestant who tried to bake himself. "I got confused, scared," Ward said solemnly. "I could feel everyone judging me, even my wife. I cracked under the pressure."
So how does Roger plan to handle all this pressure?
"I don't really think about it," Roger said. "Sometimes Ward yells angry things at me, but he's going through a bad divorce right now. I think he needs this [win] more than me."
Ward disagrees. "Roger's the pizza maker. I'm not allowed to be. But that doesn't mean I can't coach. If Roger wins, I win. Then everything will be all right. Then my wife will come back to me."
"Everybody in pizza making knows Allen Ward needs serious counseling," Maroney said. "Big time."
Speaking of time, with so much of it spent around pizza, does Roger eat any on his days off?
"Sometimes Ward makes me eat the ‘bad pizzas'," he says. "He says it's the only way I'll learn."
"He'll learn before Nashville, or else," Ward warned jokingly.