The Magic of Pizza Nights

Food slows people down. It creates space for deeper conversations, for sharing both joy and grief and for welcoming others into something bigger than themselves. Over the years, we’ve watched people’s faces light up when they try our Big Mac pizza for the first time, or when they discover that, yes, brushing olive oil and salt onto the crust really does make a difference. We’ve celebrated birthdays, milestones, and even ordinary weeks that just needed a good meal to finish them off right.

How It All Began

Back in 2003, my husband, Regan, and I started making pizzas on Friday nights with a small group of friends. None of us had kids yet, and our setup was simple—a basic pizza dough made in a bread maker and baked in our kitchen oven or on our BBQ. We’d gather on couches with plates balanced on our laps, watching TV shows like Alias, 24, Lost, Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, and Prison Break. It became the highlight of our week—good food, good friends, and the perfect way to unwind.

Even as babies started arriving from 2008 onwards, we kept up the tradition. It was common to see a new mum pacing in the background, rocking a baby while still engaged in the conversation. Over time, our friends moved cities, and the TV-watching faded away, but the pizza nights remained.

The Evolution of Our Pizza Making

For years, we used our bread maker for dough, but in 2017, disaster struck—our dough came out silver! The Teflon lining had disintegrated into it. That night, we resorted to takeout, but it also sparked a change. Inspired by Nancy Silverton’s episode on Chef’s Table, we decided to try her pizza dough recipe instead of buying a new bread maker.

That experiment changed everything. The dough was leagues ahead of anything we’d made before. It was a learning curve—no more dumping ingredients into a machine and walking away. Regan had to develop an eye for when the dough needed tweaking, adjusting for things like temperature and humidity. Over time, we improved our technique, refining our ingredients and methods.

Then, one of our friends gifted us a pizza oven kit that had been sitting unused. Regan took on the challenge of building an outdoor wood-fired pizza oven, complete with a concrete benchtop and a storage area for firewood—usually offcuts from fruit trees or our own manuka wood. The oven was a game changer. With temperatures reaching around 700°C (1,300°F), our pizzas went from 20 minutes in a conventional oven to just 2-3 minutes in the wood-fired oven. The quick, intense heat transformed the texture—no more greasy, separated cheese, just perfectly blistered crust and beautifully balanced flavors.

When the stone cooking tiles in the pizza oven needed to be replaced, Regan did some more research. He discovered that adding a thick steel plate to the oven would help retain heat longer and create an even better cook, so we had one custom-made by a local metalworker.

Then came another breakthrough: trying Vito Iacopelli’s pizza dough recipe. This one required a three-day fermentation process instead of two, but the results were undeniable. The crust had more structure, more flavor, and just the right balance between chewiness and crispness. We also switched to using Italian 00 flour and San Marzano tomatoes—both of which significantly improved the taste and texture of our pizzas. Even better improvements came when we started using Caputo 00 flour and switched from pre-grated bags of mozzarella to a log of fresh mozzarella. Many of our gluten-intolerant friends (not celiac) were shocked to find they could eat our pizza with no issues, likely thanks to the quality of ingredients and the long fermentation process.

By 2020, we were regularly making pizzas for up to 40 people. Our KitchenAid mixer couldn’t handle those volumes, and hand-kneading was out of the question, so we invested in a commercial dough mixer. It looks about the size of a washing machine at the end of our kitchen bench, but it’s been worth every cent—reducing Regan’s hands-on time while producing beautifully smooth, elastic dough.

Why We Keep Doing It

Our Friday pizza nights are about far more than food.

For many people, Friday night used to mean unwinding over drinks and a meal with friends—processing the week, laughing, and easing into the weekend. But life gets busy, and these communal meals often disappear. People head home exhausted, grab takeout, and miss out on the kind of slow, intentional gathering that fosters real connection.

We wanted to create a space where people could show up and be included. Where kids could run around outside, make up talent shows, play board games, or sit around the fire pit on summer nights. Where regulars could bring new friends, knowing they’d be welcomed. Where, on hard weeks, people could still come, eat, and be around others—without the pressure to be entertaining or “on.”

We’ve had hundreds of people share a meal with us over the years, and we’ve never tired of it. We encourage everyone to contribute—bringing ingredients, helping prepare toppings, cutting and serving pizzas. Some stay to help with dishes, others just enjoy the night. There’s no pressure.

Even during the COVID lockdowns, we kept it going within our small “bubble.” In early 2020, when our youngest son, Theo, was diagnosed with leukemia, we needed our community more than ever. There were nights when I was so drained, but friends stepped in—serving pizzas, cutting slices, making sure everything ran smoothly so I could simply sit and talk. Those moments meant the world to us. We also did doorstep drop-offs of homemade pizza in cardboard boxes to friends who were really sick but still hungry—with all the kids writing messages on the boxes to cheer them up. And when Theo was in the hospital on a Friday night, one of our friends drove an hour into the city with pizza for him because missing out really upset him—it was the highlight of his week. Those moments meant the world to us.

And that’s why we keep doing it.

Every Friday, we make pizza. And anyone who walks through our door is welcome at the table.