Amici’s and Wood Stone Equals Amore

Amici’s East Coast Pizzeria was conceived in the mid-1980’s by two of the Bay Area’s East Coast transplants, Peter Cooperstein from Boston,
and Mike Forter from upstate New York. They shared a mutual longing for the unique thin crisp-crust pizzas they’d grown up with back home, and set out on a quest to bring those pies to the West Coast.

With an emphasis on east coast style pizza, they knew two things were essential: the unique recipes that made the pizzas of New York,
Connecticut and Boston so distinctively tasty, and of course, the right domed oven.

They began business with the traditional wood-burning ovens and while these age-old hearths were the perfect storm for the thin, slightly
chewy crusts they loved so much, they had heat retention and deterioration issues that made them inefficient and problematic, especially as the Amici’s began to expand. As a consequence, Cooperstein and Forter set out to find a better oven.

And, in the end, they looked no further than Wood Stone. At the 2000 Pizza Expo in Las Vegas, Amici’s owners met current Wood Stone President Kurt Eickmeyer, and were immediately impressed with his understanding of their business needs as well as with Wood Stone’s ovens.

“Wood Stone ovens are the sturdiest and best made anywhere in the world. The high dome/hearth burner designs allow for better convection, heat retention and faster, more even cooking. That in turn allows for a wider door which is another important factor when you have as many as 500 pizzas in and out of an oven in a single day,” noted owner Mike Forter.

Since 2000, Amici’s has purchased Wood Stone ovens exclusively. As of February 2013,  Amici’s has now purchased 26 Wood Stone ovens for their various locations.