Heat up your ovens, everyone!
A popular thin-crust pizza place in northern New Jersey has taken food truck culture to a new level by outfitting two Tesla Cybertrucks with dual-tiered ovens to bake pizzas on the go — and they’re doing it at a speed that’s literally crazy.
Food trucks have long taken over parking lots on the nation’s culinary scene, but they’ve never seen anything like this before.
“This car is fast. It has enough power to cook a pizza in about two minutes,” Fabio Antonio Arbelaez, a longtime partner at the Columbia Inn restaurant in Montville, told The Post about the electric vehicle’s incredible cooking prowess.
The fresh, hand-made, never frozen pizzas are cooked at lightning speed right on the truck thanks to conveyor belts and high-powered ovens, which bake the pizzas at 600 degrees as they pass through the machine.
Electric cars have more than enough power to deal with them, he added.
Arbelaez, 43, of Parsippany Lake, repurposed Elon Musk’s controversial, angular vehicle and fitted it with a double-stacked roaster that runs on a 240-volt outlet in the bed.
The 25-year pizza veteran claims the combination, which he displays on his matte black truck with a sign that reads “Jersey Thincrust Pizza,” is an American first.
“People are amazed when they see the Cybertruck in public, but even more so when they see the pizza,” said Arbelaez, nicknamed “Mister Tesla” after being one of the first local electric car buyers..
“We’ve had a lot of response to the truck, about 70 percent positive,” he added.
As for the remaining 30%, no one seems to be criticising the food, just the clunky, Tron-esque packaging.
“The best compliment I’ve ever received is that my truck looks like a trash can,” Arbelaez joked.
“She’s ugly, but she gets it done like no one else can.”
He also made headlines when he stopped by Barstool Sports’ Midtown offices in early August.
The two Cybertrucks were purchased last winter to help meet the restaurant’s growing catering demand from its traditional food trucks, and since then, with their cylinders (or rather, batteries) running at full power, the electric vehicles can churn out a whopping 120 pies per hour, either regular or personal size.
Arbelaez said the oven can bake for eight hours at a time and can travel 50 miles after the battery dies.
For Arbelaez, the biggest challenge wasn’t installing the roughly 50-by-40-inch ovens, which weigh more than 200 pounds each, but arranging the cooking equipment and ingredients in an easily accessible space.
“We had a custom-made slide made for the oven so that I can pull it out when I park,” said the Colombian-born Arbelaez, adding that there’s also space for a refrigeration unit on the passenger side to fit a dry ice cooler.
The Cybertruck’s tow hitch also supports a 50-foot umbrella to cover your workstation.
Arbelaez has long been an advocate for clean energy and electric innovation, and research from the Keck School of Medicine has shown that electric vehicles can lead to both reduced air pollution and improved health outcomes.
But some reports suggest EVs may not be the environmental saviors that were promised. One report found that because EVs are built much more densely than gas-guzzlers, they emit more pollutants from tire wear than fossil-fuel vehicles.
However, a 2019 analysis found that the early Cybertruck emitted 100 times less polluting emissions when compared to a Ford F-150 truck.
Tesla vehicles have traveled across the Garden State as far south as Point Pleasant and have also taken part in catering events in New York City, while an event in the Hamptons is already booked for fall.
The truck was recently deployed at Hamilton Farm Golf Club in Somerset County, providing meals to 200 players as they approached the tee box.
But this is “just the beginning,” Arbelaez proudly proclaims, and he’s moving at breakneck speed to further develop the concept and take it in a more futuristic direction.
“The goal of the Cybertruck is to eventually enable deliveries without a driver,” Arbelaez said.
“Just place your order and it will be delivered to your house,” he explained, “and unfortunately, you’ll have to get up off the couch to receive it.”
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