Oberlin is a Plethora of Pizza

"Today everything is different. There's no action. I have to wait around like everyone else. Can't even get decent food. Right after I got here I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce and I got egg noodles with ketchup. I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook."

- Henry Hill, from Goodfellas

Pizza the Hut: There are many pizza options in Oberlin. Students wonder, is CDS the best? (photo by Christine Braunohler)

So you're looking for some fine Italian food? Try Florence. But if you don't have the time or the income to justify an impromptu trip to the land responsible for Vinny Barbarino and Jon Bongiovi, perhaps you should consider a few North American alternatives. In the North Beach section of San Francisco, there's a great little Italian restaurant on the corners of Columbus, Mason and Greenwich called Buca Giovanni that serves up a mean fettuccine topped with smoked rabbit. If you're in the Big Apple and you want to avoid the street mobs that habitually overtake Little Italy, check out Barbo, a divine eatery located in the heart of Greenwich Village at Waverly Plaza. Hell, even Cleveland, a city that hails Blimpie as the peak of culinary evolution, boasts a handful of great Italian restaurants. Members of the local Mafia seem to favor Piccolo Mondo, an upscale joint on West Sixth Street that offers an impressive selection of seafood, pasta and wine, and it would be difficult to argue with their choice.

Unfortunately, few Oberlin students have the time or even the necessary means of transportation to plan weekend getaways to New York City and the Bay Area, much less the glorified cesspool that is Cleveland. And for those unlucky souls doomed to dine in Oberlin, the pickings are mighty slim. Sure, you could waste your money on an evening at Presti's, where egg noodles and ketchup top the menu of "authentic" Italian cuisine, but let's face facts: finding a decent Italian meal in Oberlin is as difficult as meeting a supermodel at a Star Trek convention.

Even so, local diners should not despair. Although fans of fine Italian delicacies will undoubtedly be disappointed by their lack of options, they can take some small measure of comfort from the fact that Oberlin, like all college towns, is a veritable hotbed of pizzerias. So whether you're a fast food addict or just a nocturnal scholar with a bad case of the munchies, there is always a little slice of heaven waiting to satisfy your hunger. With that in mind, the Review recently decided to rate the local pizza restaurants to help you discriminate in your search for quick, affordable junk food.

C&J's Pizza: Something is rotten in the city of Oberlin, and the foul stench you've been smelling might be coming from C&J's, a spooky little pizza joint located at 175 South Main Street. Decorated like an extremely poor man's Graceland, C&J's boasts an atmosphere so cold and forbidding that one has to wonder whether Darth Vader was hired as its interior designer. (Apparently, the architects of the Death Star were unavailable for the job, having been killed in that horrible explosion at the end of Star Wars.) Beyond that, C&J's is lacking in almost every department. Its pizza is generic and inoffensively bland, much like its selection of sandwiches. To make matters worse, the damn place is rarely open for business, lending credence to the popular theory that C&J's is little more than a front for a group of Sicilian arms dealers. For reasons that would mystify even the Delphic Oracle, it is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, but that's not really so strange, especially when you consider that it's virtually impossible find it open any other time. But why should anyone care? Why should the good people of Oberlin go hungry while the folks at C&J's take their sweet time recovering from their weekend hangovers? The answer is simple: they shouldn't.

Campus Dining Service: It should come as no surprise to anyone that Campus Dining offers a unique brand of pizza that tastes like refried cardboard topped with synthetic cheese. After all, what more can you expect from the Marriott corporation, the same evil empire that has been feeding us prison slop for the last few years? All the same, the pizza at Stevenson and Dascomb is actually a step up from the usual fare, as it is both edible and easily digestible. (In other words, it won't leave you with that not-so-fresh feeling that you will inevitably experience after repeated trips to the American Grill and the Tex-Mex Bar.) Even so, you'd be doing your taste buds and your digestive system a favor by going to DeCafe and spending a few Flex dollars for a Stouffer's French bread pizza. For that matter, head over to the Co-op of your choice any Friday night of the year and check out pizza night. It's plenty of fun, it's rewarding and it's even healthy.

The Feve: Stop the presses! Could it be true that the Feve, once noted for its selection of Tang and a crew of employees only slightly less competent than Boss Hog and Sheriff Rosco, really serves pizza? Sadly, it is. There is a subtle twist on the formula, however. In an effort to maintain its semi-bohemian image for the trendy masses, the Feve offers its customers homemade pita pizzas with almost any topping imaginable. (For a particularly satisfying experience, try a pie with avocado.) Unfortunately, the pizzas are typically smothered in a mountain of cheese that too often ends up on your floor, not in your mouth. Worse yet, the pitas are usually half-baked, making the whole experience as messy as it is unappetizing. So perhaps the Feve should perfect its pizza recipe and teach its employees to follow it until the pitas are crisp and the cheese fully melted. Or perhaps they should just stick to hummus, beer and Buffalo Shistawouks, leaving the pizza business to the folks who actually care about it.

Lorenzo's Pizzeria: For years, Lorenzo's has been serving up the best pizza in town, and despite stiff competition from Pauly's East Coast, that hasn't changed. With a diverse selection of toppings and a crisp crust that seems to have been inspired by the legendary cooks of Greece, Lorenzo's provides a more satisfying dining experience than any pizza joint in town. (For a real treat, check out their pesto chicken pie, which might be one of the best dishes in Oberlin.) To be sure, the rest of its menu is mediocre at best, featuring bland breadsticks, second-rate sandwiches and a few pathetic attempts at pasta. But the folks at Lorenzo's have a pizza recipe that works, and let's just pray they stick with it. Otherwise, students and townspeople alike will have to turn to the Missler's fried chicken counter to satisfy their cravings for fat-filled junk food.

Pauly's East Coast: You've got to give credit where credit is due. As an Oberlin student, Paul Jambor must have known that he was setting himself up for an embarrassing fall when he opened an East Coast pizzeria in the same God-forsaken dump that once housed Annie's New York Style Pizza and Annetta's Soul Kitchen. But Jambor has beaten the odds, and the secret to his success is simple: he and his staff produce quality food and provide service that is consistently prompt. Better yet, the East Coast menu features a healthy dose of real Italian pasta, from ravioli to fresh tortellini. The portions are generous, the vodka cream sauce is delicious and the bread is nice and crisp. But what about the pizza? Well, there's the rub. The pizza is passable, though eerily similar to the generic brand of pie served up at Pauly's ignominious predecessors at 38 South Main Street. Meanwhile, the selection of toppings is disappointingly thin for a restaurant that seems to pride itself on its imaginative menu. But Pauly's succeeds on the strength of its pasta, its garlic bread and its fast service. Sure, the pizza could use some work, but it provides a nice, conventional alternative to the pies served at Lorenzo's.

Pizza Hut: There's darkness at the edge of town, and it seems to be seeping through the walls of Pizza Hut. What is its source? Perhaps it is the darkness in the souls of the evil businessmen who founded this deplorable chain, a chain that has more than earned its reputation as the McDonald's of the pizza industry. Or perhaps it is the darkness that comes from the black hole lurking in the Pizza Hut dining room, the same black hole that slowly sucks the life out of every poor soul who foolishly chooses to patronize that soulless establishment. (After all, what is Pizza Hut if not an unholy den of grease, filth and heart disease?) Whatever the case, Pizza Hut is a pox on society, not unlike famine, pestilence and the Police Academy saga. Avoid it at all costs, but if curiosity or hunger force you to make the two-mile trip down Route 58, don't say you weren't warned.