He was going back and forth with whoever was on the other end about where they were going for their post-game meal.
“Hey, we’re right by Tommy’s,” he said. “We could just settle on that and eat there.”
Before I took my eastward turn back to my dorm at Bowen House, I heard him rejoicing with the group he was with, reliving his glory days as an Ohio State student.
He told his friends Tommy’s Pizza’s proximity to the Ohio Stadium made for convenient trips every football Saturday in Columbus, as the campus location sits on the corner of Lane and Neil avenues.
The last thing I heard from the man was how good Tommy’s Pizza was.
My uncle — who is also an Ohio State alumnus — came up for a game my freshman year and asked if I had tried Tommy’s before, echoing some of the same sentiments as the man on the phone.
I had never had it — when I was a freshman, I tried to use my dining plan swipes as often as I could because otherwise, that’s money down the drain. Having lived on South Campus for the past two years, I wasn’t itching to make the trek across campus.
I ate there for the first time this week, and all I have to say to the anonymous phone caller and my uncle is there must not have been many other options back in the day.
The pizza was underwhelming and didn’t live up to my personal expectations and preconceived notions.
The shop advertises spaghetti, subs and pizza on its exterior signs, so I thought they would be well-versed in their bread, dough and crust.
I was sorely mistaken.
I don’t like to throw this terminology around because I feel it’s insulting to pizza everywhere, but the body of the pizza had the consistency of cardboard. There was too much crunch, not a lot of depth and a distinctly stale flavor.
The crust was lackluster as well, hollowed out with enough air on the inside to put a Lay’s potato chip bag to shame.
The sauce wasn’t any better. There were no added herbs or spices, and there wasn’t much real flavoring at all. It was just a bland sauce that felt like it was only there because it’s a requisite for pizza.
The only real elements of the pizza that were good carried the score’s weight tremendously.
The cheese was good — dare I say, extraordinary — with a perfect consistency and flavor to it. However, I’m still trying to decide whether it was really good or the rest of the pizza was just really bad.
The plastic mini tabletop in the center of the box to aid the pulling apart process is also a personal favorite feature of mine, helping out the final score as well.
Overall, Tommy’s Pizza was nowhere near what I expected and failed to live up to the hype. Pizza tends to be something that’s nearly impossible to mess up. When judging a pie, it’s more a matter of how it compares to others as opposed to whether it tastes good.
Tommy’s Pizza, however, was just bad.
But hey, maybe they have some good spaghetti and subs.
Rating: 5.4/10
