Since pizza is essentially its own food group and a staple of any healthy college diet, there are a variety of options for good pizza near campus; each offering a little something different. Cici’s Pizza, located on Reynolda Road, stands out for its convenience and excellent prices. A unique combination of American style buffet and innovative pizza choices, Cici’s is perfect for pizza with a twist.

Entering the restaurant, customers are greeted with a warm “Welcome to Cici’s!” by the employees, a testament to the friendliness and attentiveness of the staff. Although the atmosphere may seem at times like a glorified Pit, and beware that meals will be shared with highly mobile young children as well as teenagers looking for a hangout, the pizza really is that good.

An adult buffet meal, the main menu option available (aside from a discounted child price), is a more-than-reasonable $5.69 for an all-you-can-eat array of pizzas, salads, pastas, and desserts. There are at least ten pizza varieties at the buffet table at a time, as well as a basic salad selection and an assortment of brownies and cookies.

The pizza choices range from traditional cheese and pepperoni to the more extreme taco pizza, with bits of tortilla chips and spicy salsa topping, to the macaroni and cheese pizza, with lots of noodles and American cheese. The Super pizza, a delicious blend of pepperoni, sausage, ham, black olives, green peppers, mushrooms, and onions, combines the best aspects of a meat lover’s and veggie lover’s pizza into one savory masterpiece. Every few minutes a new pizza emerges from the kitchen, hosting a different combination of vegetables, meats, and sauces.

A personal favorite was the barbeque style pizza, which perfectly mixed together a spicy barbeque flavor with the traditional cheese of a classic Italian pizza. The ingredients were generally very fresh, especially on dishes like the pineapple and ham pizza, which was a sweet treat for fruit lovers. There were enough cheese and vegetable pizzas to provide numerous options for vegetarians, too.

With a casual setting and a kid-friendly game room, Cici’s is definitely a restaurant where you don’t have to be quiet. In fact, the atmosphere, with bad eighties music and comfortable, no-nonsense tables, is perfect for large gatherings of talkative college students.

Although not the perfect setting for a romantic dinner date, and despite the fact that the buffet style and plastic trays do not differ considerably from the atmosphere of the Pit, Cici’s successfully reinvents the college staple with interesting toppings and a budget-friendly price.