The German town we lived in looks right over into Switzerland and France. The world’s highest-quality Outdoor Pizza Ovens are made in France.
The Story began over 30 years ago
The journey of bringing the famous french ovens to the USA started decades ago with a true romance in France story.
In the early 1980’s, my wife and I met in the northern part of the Alsace region of France where we were both working together in a “special needs” children’s home. We quickly fell in love and one our favorite things to do together was to eat the local specialty pizza called “Tarte Flambe” or “fired pie.” We loved this thin crispy crust pizza that used sour cream, onions, and ham as the toppings.
The most authentic Tarte Flambe was always fired in an outdoor wood-fired oven and we loved sitting at a small table an the outdoor patio, talking while the old grandmother would cook the pizzas for her customers. Those romantic times were followed by a wedding in Germany and our living back in US, but our memories of the beautiful french countryside, the people, and the delicious french food never went away.
Because we met in Europe and my wife was from Germany, we had wanted to live there again since we first were married. So several years ago, we moved with our three youngest children to the far SW corner of Germany that borders France and Switzerland.
The French village where my wife and I met in 1984
The town center of where we lived in Germany. The Swiss came here to shop . . . no sales tax for them!
Pizzas being baked at the School Festival
A German-style bake sale–everything is Homemade!
Everybody is happy!
Invited to a party where a dream springs to life
While living in Germany, we were invited to a typical German school festival. There were exhibits, plenty of cakes, and several small wood-fired ovens to sell freshly baked pizzas as a festival fundraiser. This brought back all of the old memories, and I dreamed of bringing one or two the ovens back home with me to the USA where I could have delicious outdoors pizza whenever I liked.
The idea was exciting, but finding the artisans who were still building the ovens was not that easy. The making of the ovens is a very traditional activity that exists only in a very beautiful, but rural area where the Rhine river separates Germany and France. Very few ovens are made and shipping just one or two ovens to the US is really expensive.
Invited to a party where a dream springs to life
While living in Germany, we were invited to a typical German school festival. There were exhibits, plenty of cakes, and several small wood-fired ovens to sell freshly baked pizzas as a festival fundraiser. This brought back all of the old memories, and I dreamed of bringing one or two the ovens back home with me to the USA where I could have delicious outdoors pizza whenever I liked.
The idea was exciting, but finding the artisans who were still building the ovens was not that easy. The making of the ovens is a very traditional activity that exists only in a very beautiful, but rural area where the Rhine river separates Germany and France. Very few ovens are made and shipping just one or two ovens to the US is really expensive.
Pizzas being baked at the School Festival
A German-style bake sale–everything is Homemade!
Everybody is happy!
Things get more and more complicated
After a lot of poking around, I tracked down the two best oven makers I could find. But to make my dream come true, I needed to reduce shipping costs. The only way to make it work was to find a small shipping container in which I could ship several ovens together with some household items and furniture that we had purchased for ourselves in Germany.
The idea seemed good, but it turned out to be a real challenge. I searched for weeks all over Europe to find a shipping company that was willing to deal with the extra US customs paperwork needed to ship the “commercial” ovens together with household items back to the US.
The shipper would also have to organize moving the empty shipping container from Basel, Switzerland across the German border to where we lived in Germany. We would then need quickly load the container with the ovens and furniture before the container would have to be transported back to the Rhein River and loaded on a river barge.
From Basel, the barge would take container hundreds of miles up the Rhein to the Netherlands where it would be transferred to container ship that would bring it over to Portsmouth, Virginia.
The container would then need to go through customs in Virginia and then be loaded on a truck to Raleigh. I would meet the truck and container at a self-storage facility close to the North Carolina Fairgrounds and unload the ovens and furniture.
After contacting more than 30 shipping companies, I found one based in Belgium who said “yes” instead of “no.”
Basel, Switzerland is a major commercial and transportation hub
There are many bridges that cross the Rhein River and provide easy access between Germany, Switzerland, and France
The view of our town from our apartment window. The Swiss border is straight down the road.
The Oven Maker works in this grey building located in the French Countryside
The Journey Finally Begins
Now that the shipping logistics were resolved, another big problem remained. The Oven Maker was located a couple hours away from me in France. We did not have car, let alone a truck, to go get them–we only used bikes for our daily transportation.
To make everything work, I would need to get over to France and move the ovens back to my apartment before the shipping container arrived for loading. I rented a panel van near our home and drove over the border to the small French village to pick up the ovens.
Speaking very little French (I had learned a bit when my wife and I met in France 30 years before), we spent hours trying to talk business with the French artisan metal workers. They laughed together with my wife and I as we tried to negotiate using our hands. They were super excited to have a stranger show up to buy their ovens that would be shipped by boat boat to America–a true experience of a lifetime!
The Journey Finally Begins
Now that the shipping logistics were resolved, another big problem remained. The Oven Maker was located a couple hours away from me in France. We did not have car, let alone a truck, to go get them–we only used bikes for our daily transportation.
To make everything work, I would need to get over to France and move the ovens back to my apartment before the shipping container arrived for loading. I rented a panel van near our home and drove over the border to the small French village to pick up the ovens.
Speaking very little French (I had learned a bit when my wife and I met in France 30 years before), we spent hours trying to talk business with the French artisan metal workers. They laughed together with my wife and I as we tried to negotiate using our hands. They were super excited to have a stranger show up to buy their ovens that would be shipped by boat boat to America–a true experience of a lifetime!
The view of our town from our apartment window. The Swiss border is straight down the road.
The Oven Maker works in this grey building located in the French Countryside
Finally, a Happy Ending
After a very long day, my wife and I got the rental truck and ovens across the border and back to Germany. The container and its contents were loaded, shipped, and after several weeks arrived safely in Raleigh.
But with all the activity related to the move back to the US, it took two years for me to find time to build this simple website to sell the extra ovens that I didn’t need for myself.
You can only see the pictures, but not taste the delicious pizza made in these ovens. But I still hope you will become an owner of one of these beautiful outdoor pizza ovens!
The Ovens and our household items are carefully packed in the shipping container.
The very nice French driver closes up the container to take it to the Rhein River.
Having landed safely in Portsmouth, Virginia, the container arrives at our self-storage unit in Raleigh.
The large and small ovens are finally unloaded and carefully stored.
Want to learn more? Quantities are Very Limited. Please contact us and we can answer any questions:
Mike Hillerbrand
World’s Finest Pizza Ovens
5115 Beryl Rd, Raleigh, NC 27606
Phone: (336) 448-9948
email: