A retrospective on Uni’s pizza sales

Before the 2015-2016 school year, Tuesdays and Thursdays were alight with excitement because of two words — “Pizza Sales”. During lunch, pizza was sold to students at the price of 1 dollar per slice. Students would line up outside of the kitchen and treat their eyes to stacks of pizza boxes on the back tables.

According to Senior Austin Chen, “Literally every Tuesday and Thursday there would be a hundred students lined up to get pizza in the kitchen.”

These pizzas, usually bought from Papa John’s by Uni administration, could be manned by clubs, classes, and Studco members. The profit would go towards those manning the sale to provide for various activities. For example, after Unique (Uni’s arts publication) no longer had their publishing fees covered by Uni, they utilized the pizza sales to raise funds.

At the price of $1 per slice, the offer was hard to pass up for students who had money to buy lunch.

Junior Isabella Solis, who only experienced pizza sales subbie year, says “It was nice. It was a good way to buy lunch without having to go out because going out is really expensive. Sometimes at the end of the lunch period, when not all of the pizza had been sold, you could buy them for 50 cents.”

During pizza sales, Chen would often purchase 6-7 slices at a time and eat them all.

“Sometimes I went mushroom if I was feeling risky, but I usually just went pepperoni… The fact that you could get food in Uni for cheap [was the best thing], and it tasted pretty good.”

Chen’ favorite memory of pizza sales was “Seeing people walk out of the kitchen with a box of pizza that’s like ten slices, and you wonder if they’re going to eat them all.”

However, it was announced during the 2014-2015 school year that pizza sales would abruptly be cancelled during the 2015-2016 school year, due to the University prohibiting Uni to fundraisers on school property. This cancellation was lamented over by Uni students and even met with anger, according to Senior Adam Mao.

“I was mad. It was easy and cheap lunch, and they got rid of it.”

Solis says, “I remember being really sad once they were gone, because I really liked it. It just felt like an event where you would have races with your friends to see who could get pizza first.”

Chen now has to walk outside to Green Street whenever he wants to get a lunch. He spends more money on his meals because of the increased prices of campus restaurants.

“When you have to walk outside [in the winter], it’s not a fun experience.”

After the end of pizza sales, Solis had to think about what to pack more often. However, she says that there was a positive aspect to it — the lunch room became less crowded.

“We could sit in the kitchen every day after subbie year, so that was like a different thing.”

Although the luxury of purchasing Papa John’s pizza within Uni’s doors may be long gone, there is still hope for pizza lovers — albeit at a higher price. The Dragonfire Pizza truck is outside Uni during lunch hours, and delivery or takeout from various pizza places on campus is always an option for those who want to put in the extra effort. Chen often gets takeout from Papa John’s with coupons, but he admits that the pizza is still expensive with prices of $10. In his opinion, Dragonfire is not worth the price.

Solis recommends that those who have 5th hour free to go to Manolo’s.

“Although it’s [Manolo’s] expensive, it’s a lot of food… Dragonfire is okay, but it’s also kind of expensive. If I had free periods, I would go to Manolo’s, because that’s the tasty stuff.”

Pizza sales may be long gone, but that doesn’t mean that students aren’t hopeful.

“If they could come back, I think everyone would want them to come back, “ says Chen.

Solis predicts that subbies would be “really jazzed” if pizza sales returned. “I would be excited, because it would be a bit of nostalgia for me.”

Only time will tell!