Wood-fire oven bringing Almonte together for pizza and community
Posted May 8, 2026 01:41:37 PM.
Last Updated May 8, 2026 01:45:11 PM.
Nestled in the heart of a neighbourhood beside the library is a free to use wood-fire oven.
The Almonte Friendship Oven, located at 155 High St., is starting to gear back up, bringing events to the area and hosting fundraisers. It has operated since 2018, but took years off during the pandemic because of the fear it could spread COVID-19.
Jeff Mills, a resident and the one who spearheaded the project, said the community and the oven are coming back “slow but sure” this spring.
“We always do a free pizza night for the Mississippi Mills Community Fund; we’ve got all kinds of volunteers who make the dough, and we have people who fire the oven and people just come together,” he said in an interview.
This year, a baker is interested in making sourdough bread in the oven for the farmer’s market, Mills said.
“Projects like this really bring a community together, and that’s one of the things I really like about it,” Sean MacKenzie, who helped with the build, said.
Mills said he got the oven idea from bigger cities.
He saw how successful it was in turning parks into welcoming places for neighbours and the ability to fundraise for events in places like Toronto — and he wanted that for Almonte.
He reached out to “the local” stonemason, MacKenzie and pitched the idea.
The pair sold the vision to the town and the United Way, which were the financial backers of the project.
“The selling points were that in the event of something like the ice storm, we could potentially feed people who didn’t have another way of getting fed using the oven,” MacKenzie said in an interview. “It’s sort of like a backup.”
When it was being constructed, those spearheading the project came together to make it. No outside contractors were hired for a project for the community by the community.
MacKenzie brought in his backhoe and dug down, finding the remnants of the old train station. Where the oven now stands was built on the basement of the station.
Mills hopes that with the events this summer, people will be excited about “congregating” in the heart of the community.
