Imagine yourself as a Brown student returning to your Pembroke dorm after a five-hour study session in the SciLi.
You were either studying intensely for your chemistry midterm or were distracted every five minutes by playful incoming text messages and only managed to read a page-and-a-half of your text book. The page-and-a-half that you read turned out to be the table of contents.
It is late in the night. As you walk up Thayer Street, icy wind hits your neck and you slide the hood of your coat over your head. Your stomach suddenly growls, reminding you that you haven't had a bite to eat since scarfing down a plate of baked macaroni and cheese and a bowl of Cocoa Puffs around 6:30 in the Ratty.
Your stomach demands hearty and nutritious refueling: pizza.
Your eyes scan ahead, attempting to locate the nearest pizzeria. They quickly move back and forth across the street until they zoom in on Antonio's Pizza.
You make a beeline for the door. Your mouth salivates profusely as you close the distance between you and a few delicious slices of potato bacon. Your hand reaches out to swing the door open, but you stop abruptly when something catches your eye.
Across the street you see a sign offering "Body Piercing." A certain curiosity builds inside you, but you are quickly reminded of your immediate priority of food after another growl of your stomach.
But wait! Your tunnel vision directed at the sign has dissipated, revealing an alternative to Antonio's: Nice Slice.
You now have two options for satisfying your hunger, but your stomach grows more impatient by the second, and time is running out. Which pizza place do you choose?
This scenario is not an uncommon one. The war between Antonio's and Nice Slice is affecting thousands of Brown students. Sure, there are many other places to get pizza around campus, such as Via Via IV, Pizza Pie-er or even the Gate, but the central location of Antonio's and Nice Slice on Thayer and their close proximity to one another makes choosing one pizzeria over the other particularly grueling.
Antonio's will appeal to those looking for a pizza with a heavy dosage of toppings. Their pizza comes topped with everything from spicy chicken to tortellini. The thick and sturdy crust is a nice change of pace for those who have dropped a meal credit or two at the Gate for pizza with no more rigidity than a single sheet of college-ruled binder paper.
Because their pizza is thickly loaded with toppings, most people will be able to fill up easily on two or three slices, making it the perfect place for a quick late-night pit stop.
Nice Slice takes a somewhat different approach to pizza. They sacrifice crust strength for savory taste. The pizza seems to melts in your mouth and the flavors dance upon your tongue. The unique combinations of toppings have been masterfully designed to please every taste bud you possess.
However, this comes at a price - the flimsy crust will leave those with big empty stomachs less satisfied than they might be at Antonio's.
The hipness of Nice Slice also appeals to its customers. What could be more appealing than being served pizza by a man with full-body tattoos and enough jewelry stapled through his face to set off an airport metal detector?
People dining at Antonio's will be unlikely to bump into other customers due to a relatively larger restaurant space, though that space is shared with the mysterious Gordito Burrito.
Nice Slice offers a more intimate (and poorly lit) atmosphere. Both provide ample seating for people-watching along Thayer.
The choice for me usually ends up being Antonio's. This could be because deep down I can't convince myself that bigger isn't always better, and I am drawn to the mountain of toppings piled high on an Antonio's slice.
Or I might choose Antonio's more often because I am already on the west side of the street and too lazy to make the treacherous crossing, which often begs the question: "If I am too lazy to walk an extra 20 steps, should pizza really be a regular part of my diet?"
Marcus Gartner '12 is a computer science concentrator from San Jose, California. He can be reached at
marcus_gartner [at] brown.edu.
