Story Magnet:The Outdoor Oven

"An oven is a story magnet. People rarely pass by the park oven when something is baking without stopping to talk."

Many older people still remember outdoor brick ovens from the countries they came from, Portugal or Trinidad or Italy or Guyana or France or almost anywhere. In Quebec there is a small outdoor-oven revival because it's one way to keep traditional Quebec cooking alive. But in most parts of the world, the old communal bread ovens are falling into disrepair or are already gone. At the same time, restaurants all over North America have begun to offer pizza and many other dishes cooked on the hearth of a brick oven right in the restaurant. People like it, but often times this food is expensive, because it's slow food, not fast food, prepared by the hands of cooks rather than by fabulous machines that can turn out a thousand assembly-line "food products" in under an hour.

https://www.pps.org/article/awoodfiredcommunal