Let's get saucy - and cheesyBy Minda Reves

It will please college students who subsist on pizza to find out there is some new variety in town. Cici’s Pizza and Snappy Tomato are hot and ready, but which one deserves a slice of your precious college cash? Time to find out.

Cici’s Pizza

Closest to Campus: 5226 Dixie Hwy.

Other locations: 470 New Albany Plaza & 3093 Breckenridge Ln.

I felt skeptical as I entered Cici’s Pizza. I’ve only eaten at one other pizza buffet, Mr. Gatti’s, and Gatti’s isn’t exactly known for the quality of their food.

The employees all beamed at me as I entered the door, bellowing out a hearty hello (which has the capacity of being annoying on a busy night). These employees seemed happy to be at work, unlike the angst-filled teenagers who round out the employee roster at Gatti’s.

The buffet’s clean metal gleamed, free of fingerprints and laden with fresh food. The buffet offers a salad bar with a healthy variety of toppings, breadsticks, several different kinds of pizzas and three desserts. The cinnasticks were ooey-gooey, sweet and sticky. They were warm and fresh from the oven, like every item on Cici’s buffet.

The fresh pizza is one very notable reason to choose Cici’s over Gatti’s. Pizzas only sit on the buffet for 25 minutes before they’re tossed.

Cici’s goal is to bring a smile to every customer’s face – if they don’t have the pizza you were craving, they will throw one in the oven just for you.

The pizzas demanding consumption on the bar range from traditional (cheese, pepperoni, sausage) to specialty. The sauce on their pork barbeque pizza was sweet and the alfredo spinach pizza would put a vegetarian in pizzeria heaven.

So how much will this smorgasbord run you? $3.99 ($5.40 with a drink).

I promise you, you will walk away with more than your money’s worth. Cici’s doesn’t deliver, which is a drawback if you live on campus. But their environment is family-friendly, so you can take your kids, or take your frat brothers and act like kids. Cici’s delivers the complete package: good food, good service and a good price.

Snappy Tomato Pizza

Closest to campus: 423 E. Warnock St.

Other locations: scattered across the tri-state area

Snappy Tomato Pizza snapped up over night. Where once sat a Pizza Magia now sits a comical image of a pizza in a chef outfit balancing a steaming pizza on the palm of his hand. With so many pizza delivery companies vying to be the campus favorite, I wanted to know if Snappy stood a chance.

The pizza is definitely snappy – I waited approximately 20 minutes from order to exit on a carryout specialty pizza. Snappy’s specialty pies all made my mouth water, from the Buffalo Grilled Chicken to the Snapperoni, but what really stirred up my tastebuds was the Ranch.

The Ranch is a pizza pie with ranch dressing instead of tomato sauce piled high with bacon, cheese, tomatoes, onions and green peppers. The pie stayed nice’n’toasty in the 10-minute trip back to the office.

Finally, the moment of truth. I don’t know whether it was the warmth of the pizza, the thinness of the ranch sauce or my own clumsiness, but as I moved the slice towards my mouth all of the toppings (including the scalding cheese) slid off of it, turning my bosom into a slip’n’slide.

I ate another slice of the pizza, not letting this event impair my judgment. I would prefer a thicker crust, but some people enjoy a thin pizza. The sauce was thin as well; I think a thicker ranch sauce might have helped the toppings grip to the crust and prevent bodily harm to innocent reporters.

The amount of toppings on the pizza was just right; Snappy’s didn’t skimp. Overall, though, I think I’ll stick to my usual delivery service when ordering a pizza. But I won’t give up on Snappy’s until I’ve tried their other menu items.

They offer sandwiches, salads and “snappetizers”. The flatbread is the most original item, “prepared with a special garlic blend, topped with cheese and served with our Snappy sauce.” Reg. $3.99, large $5.99.

Snappy’s delivers its own version of an old-school favorite for all of you Napoleon Dynamite fans: tater-tots, which certainly seem worth a try.

Snappy’s prices are comparable to all of the other pizza delivery companies in the area.

Outcome

So, even though the selections are interesting, Snappy’s doesn’t stand out as a delivery joint. For this match-up, the outstanding buffet at Cici’s definitely takes the pie.