Food.
As a human being, I consume a whole lot of it. As a college student, I consume it in small portions to make it last the whole week. But as Christina Montana, my food consumption revolves around one specific culinary creation: pizza. At my current rate, I eat Pizza By the Slice at least once a week. Frankly, I go there so often, I hardly have to say my order anymore.
As Pizza By the Slice is the blackout midtown-goer’s Mecca, I can understand that you might be assuming I’m drunk all day, every day. Let me explain.
My parents brought me to UF hoping that I would choose to go to school here and get my degree from here (and here I am, 13 credits away and feeling pretty damn good) but while walking around campus during preview, I was fighting the urge to drop to ground from heat stroke. Meanwhile, my parents were calmly perusing the food options around University Avenue and found a Pizza By the Slice, or, rather, Italian Gator.
They said I had to support this pizza place because the owner was from, or had lived, in Staten Island. That’s a big deal to us because it means this pizza place has connections to the “Forgotten Burrough,” and also, that it tastes just like New York pizza . My mom grew up in Brooklyn and lived there for about 30 years; same for my dad, only he was over in Staten Island. Contrary to popular belief, the population of Staten Island does not resemble the cast of “Jersey Shore.” Staten Island is made up of regular, working class people, I swear.
I trust my parents’ opinions on pizza. They’re the reason I’ve realized it’s almost impossible to stomach the likes of Dominos, Papa Johns, and Pizza Hut. It’s just painful. Sacrilege, even.
So, as promised, I went and tried out Italian Gator. I wasn’t drunk, it wasn’t 1 A.M., and I wasn’t about to be heading home. This was sobriety at its finest and I was a freshman eager to not screw up and be late to her next class.
I got the pizza, I ate the pizza, and something beautiful happened. And this has happened at least once or twice a week for the last three years—I have found my pizza place.
Now, I’ve been there during the drunken fests at Gator City and boy, the pizza is literally night and day. Daytime Italian Gator clearly has the time to prep and comfortably make their pizzas. At night, when people are belligerent and rowdy, screaming through the small window for eight slices and then ten people in a long winding line, something’s gotta give if they want to churn out that many slices.
You can’t fault the quality drop at night. Hell, I’d go nuts if I had to serve that many drunk people whose tastebuds probably can’t tell the difference between pizza and the beer they’ve been drinking.
Trust me when I say that I wholeheartedly believe that Italian Gator is hands down the best pizza place in this town. I’ve had the famous Satchel’s, and I understand the allure, but the slice of pizza I had was all toppings and no sauce and cheese. It could’ve been a fluke, but it left a bad impression on my saucy heart. As for the other joints around town, none of their pies have won me over quite like Italian Gator.
Maybe I’m just a purist, or a pretentious-as-fuck New Yorker pizza asshole, I don’t know, but when you ask me where I want go for pizza, just know the answer is always (and will be forever) Italian Gator…and that’s the sober truth.
Gosh, maybe I should become friends with Boyle from Brooklyn Nine-Nine… (also, watch that show, it’s brilliant.)
