Late Night Food Fight: Pizza Ring

It's 1:30 in the morning, and you're hungry. But where do you go? It is a divisive debate among the Harvard student body, and loyalties to the Square's late-night stops run deep. Over an 11 day period, The Crimson will debate 11 popular choices around campus. Now up: Pizza Ring.

I can think of two things that are best bought past midnight, get delivered to your door, have a big selection, and give you a cheap, satisfying, quick fix with almost certain regret in the morning. One is not legal in the state of Massachusetts. The other is Pizza Ring.

While Pizza Ring may not be the healthiest of choices or have the promptest of service, it is indisputably—for lack of a better word—clutch.

What do I mean, you ask?

Well, imagine it’s Friday night and you and your friends have made it back to your room after a night of revelry. You don’t feel like leaving the comforts of your suite again, but you also don’t feel like ending the night quite yet. Whether you just sit and talk, start a bad movie, or flip on the N64 for a few rounds of Super Smash, the inevitable happens: you all feel that pang in your stomachs that signals your second most primitive instinct—hunger. The problem, my friends, is that it’s 3:30 a.m.

The 24 Hour Market and IHOP would be great…if you felt like moving. Domino's? Nope, they closed at two.

You feel panicked and claustrophobic with the fact that you are trapped in your dorm room hungry, foodless, and hopeless, until you remember two beautiful words—Pizza Ring.

It takes a second to get past the name. I don’t know about you, but “Pizza Circle” would seem more fitting. Or if “Ring” is meant to reference boxing, the owner should seriously reconsider the name after the whole Paquiao-Bradley fiasco.

But once you look up the menu, all of your doubts are expelled. You realize you can get a jumbo pizza delivered that costs only $11.99. Jumbo! That’s bigger than “super,” which is bigger than “large.” It’s enough pizza to save and eat for breakfast tomorrow afternoon when you wake up.

And besides having great bang-for-your-buck pizza, Pizza Ring has much more to offer than its name suggests. The menu is beyond extensive. You can order burgers, hot wings, sub sandwiches, and cake, as well as less ordinary items such as cream cheese jalapeno poppers, fried ravioli, sea scallops, and baklava. It caters to your food baby’s every desire. What exactly is a side order of Jamaican Style Beef Patties? Beats me, but it’s $1.99—let’s get it.

Reading through the Yelp reviews, I realized the biggest complaint is the service. But besides the fact that customers should not expect Ruth’s Chris’ service from a place called “Pizza Ring,” I’ve found the service to be quite favorable. Yes, sometimes deliveries take a little longer than desired, but the staff is always understanding and friendly. They will deliver to you almost anywhere (rumor has it they even deliver to final clubs—not that I ever go to those), which is more than many other places can say at 4:00 a.m.

They also realize that delivering food to college kids until the wee hours of the morning will inevitably lead to some strange events. By this I mean I have personally witnessed a student pay for pizza using only the change he scavenged from underneath the cushions of the couches in his room. And when he presented the man from Pizza Ring with roughly three handfuls of coins, the deliveryman simply laughed, accepted the nickels and dimes without counting it, gave the student the pizza, and left.

Try that at the Kong.

So while the pizza slices may not be cut straight and the Department of Public Health’s A-rating on the door may be questionable, Pizza Ring is undoubtedly the greatest late-night option Harvard and the City of Cambridge has to offer. In short, it understands you at a time when not much else is being understood.