(04-11-2022 11:03 AM)Dog Fan Wrote:  

(04-11-2022 10:27 AM)Schaefer Beer Wrote:  

(04-11-2022 07:04 AM)HawaiiToNIU Wrote:  

(04-10-2022 11:50 PM)Schaefer Beer Wrote:  

(04-10-2022 03:09 PM)HawaiiToNIU Wrote:  Now I did hear that the Plaza food was world class. I got to try it a few times touring the place. And can vouch for it. It was restaurant quality. Like Chili's or Fridays.

When I lived at the dorms in the mid-eighties, the food was very institutional like. To me, it was edible but I'll eat anything. Typical dinner was Encore-grade Salisbury steak with brown liquid on top, watery mashed potatoes and canned mixed vegetables. Did it do the job for me? Yeah, but I didn't expect Chez Paul to begin with so it didn't bother me, but I know during dinner time the Douglas lobby was packed waiting for pizza deliveries because people didn't like what they were serving that night.

The Plaza was like heaven after a year of NIU dorm food.

From what I heard, there were disputes between the food company that contracted with NIU to run the cafeterias at the dorms and NIU administration because the food company was not living up to the standards that were spelled out in the contract. But they didn't change companies and the food stayed at the same quality. They must have given a discount to NIU to stop their complaining.

Brutal. Dorm food wasn't that bad when I went. It was certainly better than hospital food. What were the weapons of choice for pizza back then? Pizza pros was our favorite. That is until I discovered Pizza Villa down the road.

The main pizza places when I went was Domino's, Little Caesars, Pizza World, Pizza Villa St. Peppers, J.P. Hannigans and Sam's. And I forgot Paglai's.

Out of all of them Sam's was the best. I think they had a day where it was cheap to order a pizza. Sam's didn't cater much to the students, they were happy with the Townfolk business. Sam's tasted like the pizza you would get in the Chicagoland area.

Domino's, LC & PW were cardboard pizzas, but the most ordered because they were cheap and had quantity(doubles). Cheap and quantity always overruled taste.
Peppers and Hannigans pizza was decent but expensive. The rich kids would order from them. Pizza Villa was between Dominos and Peppers for price and taste.

I never went to Paglai's until my last semester senior year even though they had all you can eat Pizza on Tuesday's for 5 bucks. They also had BYOB. So 4 of us would go when it opened at 4, bring a couple of cases of Schaefer at 5.99/case and play spades in a booth until it closed. They kept the cases in their frig and as we played and if we got hungry, we just order a pizza.
They never had a problem with us doing that.

Aahh, memories! I enjoyed Pagliai's but have a not so great memory. I choked on a piece of cheese from the pizza. Part of it was in my stomach and the other part still in my mouth. So....it was not too hard to just yank out. That, gentlemen, is your mind candy mental image for the day!! That certainly impressed my girlfriend! Luckily, she still became my wife.

My pizza place of choice was of course Pizza Villa. A couple of us guys ordered a pizza on the first night I was in the dorm (Douglas). It's still our favorite.

I would have liked to see the waitress' reaction as she was walking by and noticing you pulling out a long cheese string from your throat