Fast pizza expected to bring young crowd to Stuyvesant Plaza
The Enterprise — Elizabeth Floyd Mair
Josue Hernandez of Blaze Corporate builds a fast-fired pizza. Hernandez was one of the corporate employees at the Stuyvesant Plaza shop last Thursday to train new employees.
GUILDERLAND — The promise: artisanal pizza that cooks in three minutes.
Blaze Fast Fire’d Pizza is new to Stuyvesant Plaza, having opened a location in Mohawk Commons in Niskayuna in September, according to Mike Hoover, one of the two co-owners of both branches of the popular national chain.
What makes it artisanal?
According to Hoover, handmade dough, handmade sauce (and there are three choices -- classic red, spicy red, and white cream), and the large selection of fresh toppings to choose from.
Among the more unexpected toppings here — gorgonzola, vegan cheese, artichokes, Italian meatballs, whole roasted garlic cloves, turkey bacon, and applewood bacon.
Pizzas are 11 inches in diameter.
They range in price from $5 for a “simple pie” (mozzarella, parmesan, and red sauce) to $7.95 for a build-your-own or a signature (Blaze’s combinations) pizza. Customers can also modify signature pizzas with their own choice of toppings at no extra cost.
“I think it’s going to change the demographics of the mall,” said Ed Swyer, president of Stuyvesant Plaza Inc. “I think you’re going to get more university students in here.”
Blaze brings the number of eateries in the plaza to 10, said Swyer, who noted that at one point early in the mall’s 50-year history, there were only 11 tenants, total.
"The plaza keeps evolving,” Swyer said.
The previous tenant in the site was Coldwater Creek, a women’s clothing retailer.
At 3,400 square feet, Blaze now occupies more than half the space formerly rented by Coldwater Creek. Verizon Wireless has moved into the remainder of the space.
Said Janet Kaplan, vice president of real estate at Stuyvesant Plaza, “As stores leave, if we don’t replace them exactly, we try to get something new and modern.”
Swyer said that Stuyvesant Plaza feels a responsibility to be “not just upscale.”
He noted that the plaza already has a drugstore, a tailor, and a shoe-repair place. “We’re like the downtown for McKownville. We appeal to everybody.”
And how does Blaze cook pizza so fast?
Pizzas sit on a stone hearth in an oven heated to 575 degrees, but the dome at the top can reach about 1,000 degrees, said co-owner Hoover. “We retain the heat there.”
