It’s that time of year.

Need a study break? Like free food?

In case you haven’t been benefiting from the Blog meal credit cooperative yet — or even if you have — come on down to the libraries tonight and tomorrow for the semesterly tradition of Pizza Nite! If you haven’t been before, you really ought to check it out. It’s quite the scene.

TONIGHT (Tuesday): SciLi basement
Tomorrow (Wednesday): Rock lobby
Both at 9pm.

Expect crowds. (Also, apples.)

All for you. Those boxes are all for you.

It’s that time of year again. The impending doom of finals also means that Pizza Nite is upon us once more. In this semesterly tradition, the library staff brings out boxes and boxes and boxes of pizza… and did I mention more boxes? (And cookies and brownies — and some apples to be healthy.)

Let them eat pizza. Rock tonight (Tuesday), SciLi tomorrow (Wednesday), both at 9 p.m.

Antonio's posted this sign notifying patrons of the change.

Tragedy has struck on Thayer Street: Antonio’s will no longer be serving $1 cheese slices on weekends. Brown students and townies alike will have to find other places to get some cheap eats to soak up all the alcohol after long nights of partying. Nice Slice, wanna step up and keep the dollar slice tradition alive?

Image via Adam Toobin ’15.

Everyone loves free pizza.

If you’re in the library and are looking for a little more free food than was what was handed to you last night, head on down to Pizza Nite, taking place at 9 p.m. tonight at the SciLi and at the same time tomorrow at the Rock.

Pizza Nite, a semesterly tradition, is a night unlike all others: Friendly library workers bring out boxes and boxes of pizza by the stack, feeding the hungry masses. Depending on the crowds, it can one of the more epic free pizza events out there.

Extra, extra, read all about it! In the space where candy could once be purchased according to weight (no, not Lil Jo’s – J&J’s Candy Bar), Mike’s Calzones has set up shop. The new food joint at 288 Thayer Street opened Monday afternoon, boasting a menu of (gasp!) calzones, starters, wraps, subs and salads at an affordable, college student price.

The list of calzones offered is extensive, ranging from “Veggie Lovahz” to “Chicken Bacon Ranch” and beyond (word on the inside, however, is that “Buffalo Chicken” is where it’s at). If you can’t find love in their calzone options, you can always design your own calzone with mozzarella and a choice of four “toppings” (I instead might refer to these as “stuffings”).

Mike’s is open Sunday-Thursday 10am-10pm and Friday and Saturday 10am-11pm. We all know that the pizza cone couldn’t find its place up on College Hill, but I think the more portable calzone may be solid competition for the Nice Slice and Antonio’s crowd. Let’s give it the old college try and give Mike a chance, shall we?

Sure, the plate might be the same beige ceramic and the slice might not look like anything special, but today the pizza artists at the Sharpe Refectory (in a moment of gourmet splendor, it sheds its Ratty nickname) have truly outdone themselves. BBQ Chicken Pizza premiered to little fanfare (not even a mention on the BDS site?) beyond the grease pen on the sneeze guard, but what it lacked in promotion, it more than made up for in taste. In fact, the pizza was so surprisingly yummy that my dining companion exclaimed with unbounded joy: “This might be one of best things the Ratty has ever done.” Three major components distinguish this pizza from the Ratty’s previous offerings:

1. Doneness: this might be the most perfectly cooked pie ever to come out of a salamander — the crust is super crispy, with bits of deliciously burnt cheese on the upper crust and a nice, brown undercarriage. In the toppings department, the chicken, cheese (possibly a mix of cheddar and mozzarella) and sauce on the body of the slice remained pleasantly warm but not too hot or overdone.
2. The Sauce: while you can definitely taste the corn syrup, the barbeque sauce is tangy, slightly spicy, and, while definitely lacking that familiar molasses taste, not too much worse than the pizzeria equivalent. Moreover, the sauce gets distributed like normal pizza sauce rather than in a spiral, so you get the BBQ flavor in each bite.
3. The Chicken: what really sets this Ratty pie apart from even the most revered pizza joints is the chicken-to-slice ratio. Not only are there a few large chunks of white meat on almost every slice, but the chicken is not unpleasantly dry or chewy like its Thayer St. counterparts at Nice Slice and Antonio’s.

If the Ratty continues to roll out new pizzas like these, we might have to add The Pizza Principle to our comprehensive list of meal plan taos. As far as we know, this bad boy is available through dinner — so don’t let it slip by you!

Eat free or dine trying.
__________

Taubman Brown Bag
12:30 – 1:30 pm at 67 George St. (Room 103)

Pizza and public policy as author Dan Pallotta presents his work: “Uncharitable: How Restraints on Nonprofits Undermine Their Potential.” Nonprofits might have problems fulfilling their capacities, this free lunch has potential to make any food-seeker full. There’s soda too!

Tea and Feminism
5:30 pm at Sarah Doyle Women’s Center (26 Benevolent St.)

Warm up on this absolutely dreary Wednesday with cookies, tea and casual talk on feminist subjects.

Teach for America Info Session
7:00 – 8:15 in CDC Library (167 Angell St.)

If public policy turned you off from pursuing your pizza craving, then Teach for America’s got you covered. Learn about a fantastic post-graduate opportunity and chow down on everybody’s favorite (culturally inaccurate) Italian dish.

Antonio's Pizza-- The Providence Journal / Sandor Bodo

Our dear city came in second in the “Theater/Performance Art” category and third in “Ethnic Restaurants” and “Pizza” according to a recent Travel + Leisure magazine poll. Perhaps if the powers that be at T+L had tasted Toledo’s pizza in a cone it could have pushed us over the top.

You may have already seen the gloriously good news in Morning Mail, but today and tomorrow mark the most exciting in free food adventures. What, you might ask? Pizza in the libraries! This event not only comes at a crucial time — finals, no meal credits, etc. — but also fulfills the perverse pleasure of eating in and going raucous in the library. For the Friedman Study Center that’s nothing new but for the Rock, well, might as well declare it opposite day. Advice from a veteran attendee: get to the library of the evening early and expect to push and shove.

Pizza in the Libraries
Wednesday, May 12: Rock lobby, 9 p.m.
Thursday, May 13: Friedman Study Center, basement level, 9 p.m.

Catdog. Jorts. Heelys. All loved combinations, all popular in our middle school years. Today, the best combination — one whose components, when fused, produce a creation superior to the original separate ingredients: the chicken quesadilla pizza from Antonio’s. The concept is simple: take two of the most beloved college foods — pizza and chicken quesadilla — and merge them into a mouthwatering combination of cheese, pizza crusts, tortilla chips, chicken, tomatoes, onions, and a variety of spices. The result is the perfect slice of pizza — reminiscent of the perfect quesadilla, the crunchiness of tortilla chips with the warmth of melted cheese. Anyone who experiences this culinary fiesta sings its praises up and down Thayer. Our only complaint — why don’t chicken quesadilla pizza’s exist everywhere else!?

— Ana Alvarez