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| - The food is great. The service is meh. That's the point.
If you've read my reviews before (and I'm flattered if you have), you'll probably notice that I keep coming back to certain themes. One of the big ones is my lament for the loss of small, independent, old-school restaurants in favour of higher end options and chains.
I value inexpensive, tasty food that lets me feed my family and gives me a break from cooking once or twice a week. I welcome the chance to go for lunch with work colleagues and not feel like I'm burning a mortgage payment.
Time was, pizza provided the answer to these and all other problems. I grew up near a few local joints that offered huge slices or massive pies to take out, but in time they've all closed in favour of the stingily-topped, stretchily-cheesed cardboard you find at chains I won't mention here. Or else fancy Neapolitan joints that serve great individual-sized pies at $20 a head. Which is a lot when my internal price guide says a slice is worth no more than $4 (and that's tougher and tougher to find these days).
Olympic 76 is the kind of throw-back place I love. Has it been around that long? I dunno. I've been going since I landed my first government job almost 10 years ago, so that's something. In those early days it offered solid pizza at great value-perfect for office lunch club. They offer an expansive red-sauce Italian menu but to be honest I only ever ordered pizza (or better) it's folded and deep-fried cousin, the panzerotto. Order a 3 topping job with a side of meat or marinara sauce (you're already ordering a deep fried ball of dough and cheese, get the meat), shake on a liberal amount of pepperoncino and 'parm', and you've got a molten delicious lunch for well under $20. Toppings are fresh and plentiful, cheese is fresh and sauce is tangy...even better, the crust has actual flavour and bubbles properly at the edges.
Service is all business-grim determination in the face of the lunch rush...but I'm not here to chat, I'm here to carbo-load.
True, it's gotten more expensive, and add-ons can raise the price faster than I'd like, but when I feel nostalgic or just hungry, there are few places I'd rather be for lunch.
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