Chus On Chow

“Everybody knows” that this is possibly the best pizza shop in Syracuse. We don’t need to tell you that. Check out the reviews on TripAdvisor or  any other food-rating site.

What I never knew, despite years of eating at Cosmo’s, is that, unlike at every other pizza shop I’ve ever called, you are not allowed to call in your pizza ahead of time if you plan to eat it there. I’m guessing a few decades of ill treatment by the local studenti may have something to do with that. But when I’m really, really hungry, the last thing I want to do is drive 15 minutes and then have to wait an additional 20 for a pizza. We eat pizza all over town, and we have never been told that we are “not allowed” to phone in the order ahead of time.

So of course when Lonnie’s told she’s not allowed to do something perfectly normal, she’s going to find a way around it. I asked if I could order it to go, and was told I could. So I ordered, over the phone, a garlic pizza with extra cheese. We drove up there, I actually found a parking spot and our pizza was hot and ready… in the box. We all know, don’t we, that pizza degrades minute by minute, like just about any other hot food. This is why I wanted to eat it right then.

I said we’d like to sit down (in the  nearly empty restaurant) and we were told by the person at the front counter that that wasn’t allowed. “Oh!” says I, “but we want to buy a malted milk shake and a hot drink to have here.” I was told that we couldn’t eat our pizza at one of the many empty tables because there was waitress service. I said I understood that, but I wanted to sit down to a malted milkshake. We were given a half-hearted go-ahead and walked in with our boxed pizza and sat down, fully prepared to tip the waitress the full amount she would have gotten had she served us the pizza.

We sat, we waited, the waitress did some stuff. She cleaned a couple tables, not so much as even glancing at us. The front counter person did not tell her we wanted a malt and a hot drink. Finally, when she was bent over the table just opposite us, wiping it down, I asked her for those two drinks. Eventually she got around to preparing them for us.  She never gave us the check, although this is typically done at this diner.

We ate the pizza with no plates, which was fine. We were entirely ignored the rest of the time. The malt was okay, but not nearly chocolaty or malted enough for my tastes. The hot tea was diner tea. Just fine. The pizza was out of this world. If you smell garlic wafting into your neighborhood from Eastwood, it’s because that pizza was so loaded with it and we took some of it home. It was pure heaven. Worth the inconvenience, rude treatment, and generally disappointing behavior on the part of the staff. Really.

Note to waitress: We were prepared to give you a $5 tip because that’s what you would have earned had you brought us the pizza and the drinks. But you were so amazingly incapable of doing anything to increase your earnings, such as saying “hello” or “would you like some dessert now?” that we left you only $3. For bringing us two drinks.

I think you were overpaid. The tip should have gone to the chef.

Cosmo Pizza Shop is in the heart of the Syracuse University business district:

143 Marshall St
Syracuse, NY 13210-1716
(315) 472-6766

If you go there, tell them:

Lonnie και Dave αγάπη πίτσα σας. Είναι πολύ καλό!

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