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For over 20 years, my husband and I have spent Friday nights making pizza for friends, family, and whoever else shows up at our door. It’s become more than just dinner—it’s a tradition, a way to connect, and a weekly highlight we always look forward to.

If you’ve ever thought about starting your own pizza night but weren’t sure how to make it work, this is for you. I’m sharing everything we’ve learned—how to keep it simple, organized, and fun so that you actually want to do it again next week. Whether you’re inviting a few people or a whole crowd, here’s how to set up a rhythm that makes hosting easy and enjoyable.

At first glance, this weekly rhythm might look and feel like a lot—RSVPs, sorting out ingredients, making dough, getting the house ready, hosting, cleaning up… argh!!!

Before anything else, I encourage you to read our why.

👉 The Magic of Pizza Nights

There are so many wonderful reasons to have people in your home, eating together. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Start small and simple. Invite one family over, use store-bought dough, and just enjoy being together. Try it once a month. Once you find a rhythm that works for you, it all starts to feel second nature.

Before you start, think about what kind of pizza night works for you. How many people can you realistically host? Will it be the same group each week, or open to anyone? The best system is the one that feels easy to repeat every week.

👉 How to Plan Your Pizza Night (post coming soon)
👉 What You Need to Get Started (post coming soon)

A smooth pizza night comes down to a few steps. Here’s how we do it every week:

Monday – Send Out Invites

At the start of the week, we send out an invite. We post on Facebook with an RSVP link and personally invite people we haven’t seen in a while or who might be in town.

👉 How We Do Invites & RSVPs

Wednesday – Finalize RSVPs, Plan Pizzas, Start the Dough

We ask guests to RSVP by Wednesday night so we know how much dough to make and what kinds of pizzas we’ll be serving. If we’re at capacity, we close RSVPs.

As a rough rule of thumb, we halve the number of guests to estimate how many pizzas we need, rounding up if needed. Then we decide which pizzas we’re making and work out the exact ingredients and quantities.

Everything goes into our “What to Bring” online form, where guests check off what they’ll bring. Once they submit the form, they get an email with their selections, we get a copy too, and the form updates automatically—so no one else picks the same thing.

We also start the first step of the pizza dough-making process.

👉 How We Plan Our Pizza Menu (post coming soon)
👉 Pizza Dough Recipe

Thursday – Send Out Details & “What to Bring”, Work on the Dough

We send out an email with all the details for Friday night—what time to arrive, our address, phone numbers, parking info, and a request to fill in the “What to Bring” form.

We also work on the next step of the pizza dough process.

👉 How We Organize What People Bring
👉 How to Accommodate Dietary Restrictions
👉 Pizza Dough Recipe

Friday Afternoon – Prep the House & Ingredients, Finish the Dough

Friday afternoon is reset time—the kitchen is cleaned and cleared, bins and dishwasher emptied, bathrooms refreshed, and floors vacuumed, swept, or mopped. Everyone in the family has their assigned jobs, so it gets done quickly.

A house needs a weekly clean anyway, so this is a great time to do it. Keeping up with this rhythm means we’re not scrambling before guests arrive and get to enjoy a fresh, reset space heading into the weekend.

We light the pizza oven so it has time to heat up properly, finish the last step of the pizza dough process, and prep any ingredients we’re handling—like making the pizza sauces and shredding the mozzarella.

👉 How We Prep Our Home for Pizza Night (post coming soon)
👉 How We Prepare Ingredients (post coming soon)
👉 Pizza Dough Recipe

Friday Evening – Pizza Night!

Guests arrive, and we welcome them in. If it’s their first time, we give them a quick rundown—where to find the bathrooms, where the glassware is for any drinks they’ve brought, and a few “rules” (pace yourself, but pizzas come in and disappear fast, so don’t miss out!).

If they’ve been before, they’re encouraged to jump in and help. Some people cook, cut, top, and serve pizzas, while others chat and catch up. It all just flows.

👉 How We Host a Stress-Free Pizza Night (post coming soon)
👉 Our Pizza Night “Rules” for Guests (post coming soon)
👉 How to Make Guests Feel Welcomed (post coming soon)

Friday Night (After) – Cleanup & Leftovers

By the end of the night, the pizzas are eaten, the conversations were great… and now the kitchen is full of dishes. We’ve figured out a system that makes cleanup quick and painless so we’re ready to do it all again next week.

And if there are leftovers? We make the most of them.

👉 How We Make Cleanup Easy (post coming soon)
👉 What We Do with Leftover Pizza and Ingredients (post coming soon)

For us, Friday Night Pizza happens almost every week—but not always. We skip it if someone in our family is sick, if we’re away, or if the weather is really bad. We also take a break around the holidays when lots of people are away.

But there have been plenty of Fridays when I wasn’t feeling up to hosting—and I was always glad we did it anyway. It’s almost always a highlight of the week.

If a weekly commitment feels like too much, start with once a month and see how it feels. And if you need to take a break? It’s your pizza night, your rules.

Yes, there are some costs, but pizza night doesn’t have to be expensive. Because everyone brings their own ingredients and drinks, the costs are spread out.

We’ve never asked for cash, but we’ve been surprised at how much people love to contribute more than just the ingredients—wine, chocolate, snacks, even fish they’ve caught for the freezer as a way to say “thank you”.

Leftovers also mean less waste and more meals the next day.

If this sounds like something you’d love to do, pick a Friday, invite a few people, and just start. You’ll figure out what works best as you go.