Pizza. It’s a staple of college existence, and in any college town, there are going to be dozens of pizzerias trying to hawk their wares. In an attempt to try and guide the student body away from lakes of grease, “swirlies,” and other pizza hazards, The Poly each year gets together to sample as many as we can stand and report our findings to you.
So, on a recent Friday night, we packed 20 or so people into a single apartment, dropped Lord of the Rings into the DVD player, and took bets on which would end first: the pizza poll or the movie. (The movie ended first by half an hour.)
The rules of the poll were explained to the brave souls who volunteered to participate: Each pollster had to have at least one bite of every single pizza. After their bite, they assigned each pie a rating from 0 to 10 in the categories of crust, cheese, sauce, temperature, appearance, grease, and overall taste. These ratings were then averaged together (discarding the top and bottom scores to reduce the effects of extreme ratings), and the mean of those values was taken to get an overall rating, by which the pizzas were ranked.
With the sale of last year’s champion, Gino’s, and the addition of mutliple new pizzerias to the poll, the field was wide open for any restaurant to claim the top spot.
Unfortunately—especially for our pollsters—no one rose to the challenge. We were left, not with “one pie to rule them all,” but with last year’s champion, almost by default. (It was, in fact, probably lucky that we didn’t need to title this article “There And Back Again.”)
The average pie had an overall rating of 4.74, and that was with a boost from relatively high temperature ratings. Gino’s took the top spot with a weak 5.80 overall rating, and the rest of the field was closely arrayed behind them in a stunning display of indistinguishable mediocrity.
New establishments fared poorly in this year’s poll—Vito’s was the best new entrant at 10th overall. Legends, a pub in Wynantskill, got the pizza to us quite quickly, but our pollsters all said that it would have been better off with more time in the oven.
The biggest disappointment of the night was DeFazio’s. Normally one of the better pies in Troy, the pizza we received from them not only tasted awful, but it looked terrible—the pie was more elliptical than circular. I Love NY also slipped out of the top five for the first time in several years.
The most stunning development, though, was the fourth-place finish by the Union. Pizza from the Rathskellar gets a bad rap because it generally has been sitting under a warmer for too long.
However, calling up and ordering a whole pie turned out quite well indeed—the biggest complaint from the pollsters was “there’s too much crust.” The catches, of course, are (a) they don’t deliver, and (b) they close by midnight.
The Rathskellar also picks up the “fastest pie” award, although with no delivery time to account for, the real kudos should go to Congress St. and Valenti’s. If you’re in any kind of a hurry, do not order from Papa John’s, especially on a weekend night.
I Love NY still serves up the largest pie in town at 18 inches across, and the chain establishments, Domino’s and Papa John’s, still deliver the smallest; Domino’s is also the most expensive at $10.79 for a “large.”
The most pizza for your money can be had from Congress St., although if you are willing to pick up your pie, several pizzerias will offer dramatically lower prices.
However, it seems that your money might be better spend on another type of food—by the end of the night, the poor quality of the pizza had instilled a Pavlovian response in our pollsters: When the doorbell rang, they all groaned in unison. It might be better to stick with Ramen instead.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to Rick O’Neil for his help in managing the poll and tabulating the results.
