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Seems as though these newsletters are getting further and further apart, not so much that there isn’t lots to tell, rather things move so fast that when we finally sit down to write, it all feels like old news. We’ll do our best to shut off the 24 hour news cycle brain and post here two or three times a year and keep you in the loop.
​Hard to believe we’re more than half way through our fifth year in business, this means we can get a permit for another block party for our birthday in April so definitely stay tuned, this will be one for the books.
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​​​​​​​​If you love someone, send them a pizza.
Vouchers are here!
​If you’re looking to send your nearest and dearest some hot cheesy love, look no more! Whether it’s local in Berlin at our shop or elsewhere in Germany via our Magic Market, our Vouchers are now available online and are redeemable on both online platforms and in the shop!!
It’s been a bit of a nightmare to have a voucher system that can be used across all platforms, seems like something that shouldn’t be an issue in these digital days, we’ll spare you the annoying details but until now, computer said no. Anyway, the problem is finally solved so If you’d like to grab a voucher you can do this online and email it directly to your lucky loved ones or you can swing by and grab one in the shop starting next week with one of our holiday cards.
Best Friends for Last!
Together with our lovely neighbors from @Bar_Amelie_Berlin, who run their own microbrew project Updoot, we’ve come up with our own beer. For the first Magic John’s brew we wanted to find the perfect ‘Plain Slice’ version of a beer, goes down easy and anytime, simple and always hits the spot, give it a shot and let us know what you think.
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Allrighty lovely peeps; wishing you a fantastic holiday season and a happy new year! See you on the other side.
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XX
MJ
6/12/2024
Newsletter
No.9
News from the Dough Lab
In the spirit of ‘everyday is a schoolday’ we are constantly learning new things about the art of doughmaking and the results are extremely satisfying. The biggest news is that we’ve finally found a local mill in Brandenburg with a killer 550 flour made with locally sourced wheat and we are no longer trucking tons of flour every month from the south of Germany, better pizza=better planet, a massive win.
On the Detroit front we’ve been testing a few batches with a Biga (pre-ferment) and we’re super happy with the result, a fluffier, more open crumb that's easier to digest. Now we just have to figure out how to scale this process in a 50m2 production space until we move to the new Mothership hopefully in 2025.
And speaking of the new mothership, as this move is approaching we’re starting to birth the next baby aka @O_Street_Bagels which will occupy the space we now use for production next to the pizza shop. Another much needed addition to our daily diet is a great bagel with a classic schmear. Expect the first pop up on a Sunday early February and then more regularly as we hit spring and summer till we can officially launch this pet project fully.
03/08/2022
Newsletter
No.8
Been a minute...
So much to tell, where to begin?
We got our new mixer from Kemper a few weeks ago and been getting a lot more crumb, lighter, fluffier crusts but retaining the strength they had before… its a massive step up, let us know if you can tell the difference and if you like. We also invested in a conical rounder, if you look in our prep kitchen you’ll see a cone like machine, this helps us round our dough. It was this or invest in a lot of elbow and wrist replacements for the crew, rounding all our dough is a massive undertaking. New product out with Wolt (see below) and more surprises to come in the fall, excited to get back into swing and have everyone back in town… first though, a radler at the lake.
All the news fit to post below…
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Magic John’s x Wolt
We’ve launched our Wolt shop finally in July. At the moment we’re only offering our new Calzones exclusively here but soon we will add Detroit Deep Dish by the slice and a salad to this menu.
The idea was to create a product of our classic flavors that delivers better than our New York pies, which Wolt could not carry anyway. And offer a larger delivery zone with a lower delivery minimum.
At the moment we’re still in soft launch mode and only operating on Wolt Tuesday to Thursday 17:00-22:00 but we will expand the days and hours in September.
Which brings us to sunny point number 1:
Expect changes to our own delivery service in the fall. This is one of the reasons we introduced a Wolt menu, to offer an alternative delivery service. Still debating the best approach here, different hours or higher minimums, the fact is, our independent delivery service as we’ve operated in the past two years is not sustainable for us.
Photo: Wolt
Et Voilà
The lovely crew at Voilà approached us about shipping 2 of our DIY kits German wide and as we are working on our own D2C shipping platform, we thought that this would be a great opportunity. If you’re outside our current delivery zone or do not live in Berlin you can make pizza at home with our fresh dough and have our Truffle Ricotta or Pepperoni pies wherever Voilà delivers.
Photo by @soul_food_photos
New product fails
Since lots of you will be asking, a great vegan cheese and gluten free dough recipe eludes us. Not much to say there besides if you have something to recommend, please do so. Anything we’ve had till now either fell short taste-wise or was not realistic price or production-wise.
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Magic John’s goes National!
Sometime this fall we will be launching a direct to customer shipping service and begin sending our Detroit Deep Dish and DIY Kits Germany wide. We will offer our newsletter subscribers a pre-launch deal so stay tuned.
Photo by @soul_food_photos
Last but not least…
Being Human
If you follow us on Instagram, you may have caught the occasional story storm regarding online reviews. Like every business, we open ourselves to criticism and deservedly so at times, we will get a bad review. I make sure to personally respond to the good and the bad. Though we of course strive to be, we are not perfect and never will be, everyone has a bad day here and there and when fault is pointed out I am fast to react.
I never argue with matters of taste, this is pointless, some people simply do not think that what we make is good, that is 100% ok and it’s part of being open for business being open to public opinion.
Where things can get quite frustrating is when online reviews are mean and are weaponized to damage the business. Sometimes it is clear that a person may have had a legitimate complaint but rather than speaking to us directly, that frustration is taken online to ‘warn’ potential customers to stay away. Other times it’s clear that someone simply is angry at something and we’re the punching bag of the day. In these cases I’ll take the opportunity to have some fun… life’s too short.
It’s so easy to dehumanize each other through the internet. It’s so easy to take a single interaction or experience and with one broad brush stroke paint a business a certain way, beyond being damaging to a small business, it makes everyone that works hard at it feel like shit.
I guess what I’m trying to say here is, working in service and gastronomy especially is very demanding, serving hundreds of customers every day in the heat, in the cold. Make sure to send flowers when deserved, it means a lot to any crew to hear that they made you happy and yes it does convince more customers to check it out and pay the bills at the end of the month. And when something goes wrong, talk to us, we care, talk to us as you’d like to be spoken to when you may have screwed something up. We’re not faceless, we’re humans with feelings, who just like you are trying to make it through the day.
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I don’t pertain to speak for the Gastro community here but I’m certain that this resonates, whether a line cook, barista or wait staff, people prepare and serve because they care, it’s just as honorable a profession as any other and before posting a scathing online review which yes anyone is entitled to, have a think, perhaps your words could help us do a better job in a more personal communication, I guarantee that nine times out of ten you’ll get the response you’re looking for.
Dassit really.
Enjoy the rest of your summer, stay cool, stay cheesy.
Thanks for reading and much love
MJ
08/10/2021
Newsletter
No.7
Bake it till you make it!
I hope you all have had a lovely summer, O-Street’s been a real treat, thank you very much for asking.
September has been a rather spectacular month and we bounced back in fine style from a lackluster summer. Moral is rather high all around with nightlife going back online and as many of you probably are, I am really looking forward to meet many old friends and to getting lost in music again… can’t teach an old raver new tricks I guess.
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On to the news:
Vodka!
Been working on this for a minute, our spicy Vodka Sauce pie is ready to claim it’s place on the menu. For boring production reasons we won’t be offering this in slice form for the time being but you can have this killer combo when ordering whole pies (or half and half) both New York Style as well as Detroit Deep Dish coming in October, keep an eye on our IG for details.
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MJ’s App & Loyalty Program
Keep an eye out for our new app. We're working on our user interface, even though we’ve gotten lots of compliments on the user experience thus far, I’m certain that some of you regulars may appreciate an App. We will launch this in October and App users will have some added benefits like point collection for discounts, freebees and notifications on special deals. Will also add the occasional topping special available only via the app :)
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Working Title ‘Magic Jane’s’ progress...
I wanted to move faster with some fun treats from the old hood in our new space next door but not at the price of compromising what we’re doing at the pizza shop. Since July and August have been a bit slow I decided to take time with additional investment, money don’t grow on trees and we’ve gotten exactly nothing in Corona support from our fine government because we opened in 2020.. hey not like we rented a place on O-Street before Covid planning on having some foot traffic in 2021 or anything (mini rant over). Patience is a virtue, yada yada yada … just cut me some slack I’m no spring chicken, Magic Jane’s (or whatever we’ll call it) will join us in due time.
First we will move our dough production into the space and this will allow us to more consistently serve 48 hour dough, which has been our best thus far, both flavorwise but also for digestibility. Currently we can only keep about 300 doughs in our walk-in fridge, our new fridge will be able to house up to 1000 dough balls, so management and dough rotation will be easier. Also we can start doing bulk ferments for our Detroit Deep Dish dough which in tests gave us a much better crumb… airy and fluffy but without loosing too much density.
Just a reminder, I’m always happy to get suggestions and ideas from you, not so happy to hear complaints but need to and want to. Please don’t hesitate to hit me up on our feedme@magicjohns.com address and I promise I will respond, might take a day but I will get back to you. Also if you haven’t yet, please take a minute to review us on your platform of choice (google, trip advisor etc.), spread the love.
Aight peeps, much love and thanks for all your support.
xx
John