In tiny Pioneer, California, about 4,000 feet up in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, there's a pizza place that's defined more by what it does not have, than what it has. BRU-GO'S Take-N-Bake Pizza has neither dine-in business nor delivery. It has no late evening hours, closing most days at 7 p.m. It has no advertising. It doesn't have a grill, not even one oven! There's no freezer, no ice machine, not even a coffee maker. Welcome to BRU-GO'S Take-n-Bake where the sign explains it all.

"We do have four chairs for customers," says BRU-GO'S Take-N-Bake owner Rick Goss, "but the chairs and our customers are right in our kitchen, so people are often looking over our shoulders as we work." Watching the pizza-making process is a Fascination for many customers, but Goss says the situation demands extra high standards: "It makes us good, efficient operators, because we have to have a very clean building. We're doing everything in front of the customer. Its almost as if we'd invited somebody into our home Kitchen."

BRU-GO'S Take-N-Bake operates in a building not that much bigger than most home Kitchens, so space is at a premium. "But having just 380 square feet keeps our overhead down, too." The building used to house a little bank, says Goss. 'It was a tiny savings and loan bank that went broke when so many S&Ls went out of business. I noticed it had a 'For Rent' sign on it one day." The building had no windows in it except for the drive- through teller window, still, "When I saw the building, I actually started shaking. I just knew the building would work."

When he contacted the landlord, Goss recalls, "He said I don't think you could do food in it because this was a bank.' But I was familiar with health department regulations and knew I had a good chance of having the conversion approved. I said, "Well, here's my check. Let me get back to you." And we were on our way. Working in tight spaces is nothing new to Goss: "I was in the food concession business, selling pizza through food trailers at county and state fairs for about 10 years," explains Goss, a 37-year-old native of Los Angeles. "Still, its pretty tight with six people on duty. Everybody works; that's the key."

Almost all BRU-GO'S Take-N-Bake employees women. Rick's wife of 17 years, Linda, "was a dental assistant when we started. When BRU-GO'S Take-N-Bake proved successful, she moved over."

"I've found women will be a more honest with you," says Goss. "They will express their feelings more, tell you exactly how they feel. Since we're marketing a product that 99 percent of the time, the wife is going take home and cook, our women employees can easily identify with our customers' needs."

The typical customer, says Goss, calls in an order, which is ready for pickup in about 15 minutes. "Probably 75 percent of our customers call ahead, but some like to drop in to order and then watch it being made up." The whole process of receiving the order, rolling the dough and making the pizza is done within about five feet of waiting customers. Since the product is strictly a take-'n'-bake pizza and therefore uncooked, Goss points to two immediate sales advantages. "Keeping with the unbaked product means we don't have to charge sales tax. That means customers save seven and a quarter cents on every dollar. My feeling is that customers recognize and appreciate that savings." Having a food product that requires home preparation also enables BRU-GO'S Take-N-Bake to participate in California's large food stamp program. (Nationwide, one in nine Americans is on the food stamp program.) "Accepting food stamps increased our sales by 10 percent last year," reports Goss. "That is substantial. And, to be honest with you, food stamps don't bounce. I haven't found any disadvantage at all in accepting food stamps."
BRU-GO'S Take-N-Bake hours are from 11 am. to 7 p.m., Sunday through Thursday, and 11 o'clock to 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday. "There's an evening rush hour, from 4 to 6 o'clock. Being in the mountains, we close early. There's one grocery store in this town, and it also closes at 8 o'clock. Early closing is a benefit because it enables us to get the business in a short period of time."
While BRU-GO'S Take-N-Bake is a year-round business, open seven days a week, In winter time, when we have the skiers up here, is better for pizza sales. In summertime, when it's 95' to 1OO'F, pizza sales go down."

To supplement lagging pizza sales in hot weather, "We have begun selling frostiest at our drive-through window. We have some signs out on the state scenic highway (Pioneer is located on a popular route to Lake Tahoe), so that mom and dad driving down the road with the kids will see it. We're selling one size, for 75 cents, to make it affordable, and it seems to be working really well."
Was there a need to build community awareness of Take-N-Bake pizza? "Oh yes, they really didn't know what Take-N-Bake pizza is. They'd say 'Take-n-bake? What do you mean? Not cooked?' I'd reply, 'That's right its not cooked. You take it home and bake it in your own oven.'"

Though the concept was new, initial response "was overwhelming". The people came. One thing about being in a small town, whenever you do anything, everybody knows about it right away. So once we had the building - while we were repainting and remodeling - there wasn't a person in town who didn't know that we were here. As soon as we put up a tiny 'Open' sign, they were coming in the door."
For the first three months, Goss spent a lot of time "basically just teaching people how to cook the pizza. After they got home, they would phone me when they had problems."
There was some stumbling. "One man called back and said he cooked it too long, and smoke alarms went off in his kitchen," recalls Goss, "We find it takes consumers two or three times to be able to feel comfortable cooking pizza at home. But cooking in their own kitchen also enables them to cook the pizza just the way they like it."
Cooking at home also ensures that the pizza is hot when its served. "that's important here in the mountains where our customers sometimes come from 20 minutes to a half an hour away. Delivery just wouldn't work for them."
It seems the cook-at-home concept has created a need Goss is happy to meet: Pizza cutters. "Most people don't have a pizza cutter, so we offer them one on the menu for $6.00."
Goss takes pride that 'We make our own dough. We do everything from scratch, something I've wanted to do for a long time but wasn't able to do as a concessionaire.
"We also make our own sauce. We use a ground tomato puree, next we go to a tomato paste and then we add the spice blend from Old Thyme Spice Company (a separate business Goss has recently launched). Then we add olive oil.
"The dough is made every day, in 50 pound increments. We have a Hobart P-660 mixer, which I believe is the very best pizza mixer. It has a lot of torque on it. I think it was designed by Hobart basically for the pizza industry because of the hard torque that is put on it"
With neither an oven nor a grill, "We use pre-cooked toppings. That's one area in which I wish we could do more - for instance, I wish I could cook my own sausage - but the building is not licensed to cook in. (get the video and see how we overcame this hurdle!)
So, I buy everything pre-cooked from suppliers. We use a local supplier, Tony's Salami and Cheese, which is one of the largest in Sacramento."
Goss is especially pleased with his custom blend of cheeses: "We use a blend of equal parts of whole-milk mozzarella and part-skim mozzarella. We've found, when using this 50-50 blend of part skim and whole, that after you cut the pizza and you pull the slice away, the cheese will not slide off. It'll cut away and pull off." (We now use only whole-milk mozzarella)

See-Through Packaging
When its made up, the pizza is placed on a corrugated cardboard round and packaged much like frozen or deli-pizza products sold in grocery stores. "Cooking instructions are placed on top of the pizza, and then we shrink wrap it with a plastic film."

A very important extra in the packaging, however, is a specially treated baking paper designed just for Take-N-Bake pizzas. It allows the oven's heat to transfer through that paper to the bottom of the crust "The customer is cooking the pizza at 450'F for 10 to 15 minutes. If we didn't have the right paper, it would just burn up in the oven. Our paper enables the user to simply slide the paper off into the oven with the pizza, and it cooks it really well. People are amazed it cooks that well in their regular home oven." While most people cook right away, 'We suggest if they don't intend to cook the pizza within the first 24 hours, that they freeze it. Our instructions ex- plain that if you do freeze it you should leave it out to thaw an hour or two. It has to be completely thawed before you put it into the oven, because the ingredients and the fresh dough have to come to room temperature."

Take-'n'-Bake Desserts, Too
While pizza is the main attraction, BRU-GO'S  also offers Take-N-Bake four- packs of either cinnamon or raspberry rolls, and many customers stop in just for the rolls. About half of the roll sales are added on to a pizza order, but the balance of orders are intended for either an afternoon or morning dessert. "A lot of people prefer to eat our rolls in the morning. We don't open until late morning, so they pick them up the night before."

Adding the rolls was "just something we wanted to do," says Goss. "I also work for Earth Grains Company. I've seen a lot of cinnamon rolls in the markets. I wanted to come up with something for people to take home that was made from scratch and unbaked. After they eat the pizza, they can bake the rolls for desert"

BRU-GO'S Take-N-Bake does something unusual with the rolls: they do not proof the dough. "When we make the rolls, we put them in the containers," says Goss, "then the product goes into the refrigerator, and it actually proofs itself there. So, when the customer takes it home, there should be enough elapsed time while they are traveling between our place and their home for the dough to proof.

"Quite a few bakers said I couldn't do that because I was not proofing my dough, and it would never rise. I've found that's not a problem unless its really cold outside. If there's a lot of snow on the ground, then the dough does have a hard time proofing. Even then, the only problem is that the rolls might not be as large as they normally are. But the quality is still there.

"We did the cinnamon rolls and the raspberry rolls because I wanted a dessert item to go with the pizza. There's no doughnut shop or anything like that in town. I wanted to see if I could capture some of that market"

In Pioneer, the population fluctuates between 3,000 and 5,000. There are a lot of cabins up in this area that are used only during the summer," explains Goss.

While there is another pizza place in town, the competition is not head to head. "They're a sit-down, cocktail, pizza and lunch place. And we're strictly Take-'n'-Bake." Goss has expansion plans for his BRU-GO'S Take-N-Bake concept "I would like to put one in Pine Grove, which is about 15 minutes down the mountain. And at Jackson, which is another 15 minutes drive. That would give us the entire county for Take-N-Bake pizzas, enabling us to justify advertising on local TV."

At present Goss advertises main through word of mouth, "We don't do any radio advertising. No newspaper, no door hangers, flyers, or mailers. We do have a lot of local sponsorships and fund-raisers. Three other merchants and I were able to purchase 27 computers for the elementary school. We're involved. In a small area like this, you're involved with local groups, baseball teams and what have you."

What they have in that local involvement is an investment that pays dividends for everyone in the Pioneer community, including the Take-'n'-Bake pioneers at BRU-GO'S Take-N-Bake.