Colony Pizza: Stamford's Solution to... Everything

Lunch on a cold December Friday? Colony Pizza sounded good to me, and Colony Pizza did not disappoint. Outside, the street was empty and grey; inside, Colony's bar was bustling, the pizzas were rolling out of the kitchen, and I was instantly happy.

If you like pizza, and you haven’t been to Colony, you don’t really like pizza. When people say pushy things like that, I get irritated, but I’m asserting Colony’s excellence because it’s indisputable. I won’t tell you it’s the best pizza ever, because so much good pizza is out there, but I will tell you, when I see a Colony pizza and it’s not mine, I want to cry.

The lunchtime crowd was enthusiastic, which makes sense: at Colony, you get half of a pizza, all for you. There’s only one size pizza, and it’s the perfect size for two. You have to eat half a pizza. The crowd was 2/3 men, which to me indicates that women either work too hard to justify an hour-long lunch of pizza and beer, or have enough sense in their head not to eat so many carbs in one sitting. Now that I think about it, 3 out of the 4 times I’ve been to Colony, it’s been with guys. (Ladies, head to Colony at noon and sit at the bar.)

Colony is old-school. When we sat down and ordered beers, our waitress said, “And on the pizza?” We were marked as novices when I said, “Oh- do you have a menu?” She turned around, grabbed a menu, slapped it down, and strode off. When my friend asked if they had pineapple, the waitress picked up our (8 ½ by 11 paper) menu, spread it out on the table in front of him, and ran her finger down the list of 11 toppings- none of which included pineapple. I so knew that was going to happen.

We sat in the booth closest to the kitchen and ogled each pie as it sat waiting on the counter. A dozen pies passed by, none of them mine. I really did feel like crying; I hadn't had Colony in over 3 years, and I was hungry. At one point a pizza appeared that was piled high with what looked like… mushrooms??? "What is that?" I said. "I hope there’s not a mountain of toppings like that on our pizza." We watched the waitress carry it to the end of the bar, where commotion and laughter occurred. On her way back we heard her mutter, perhaps scornfully, “Extra mushrooms.”

We got pepperoni and sweet peppers (I feel like crying right now), and on my half, sausage, and on my friend’s half, mushrooms. Three pieces each. I only gave my friend half of my last piece because he had already finished his three, and I didn’t want to be rude. Plus, he weighs 50 pounds more than me, and much as I hate to, I have to accept that I’m a 130-pound girl and adjust my food intake accordingly.

I hate to mention price, because that’s the least important thing about the meal, but for two people, 2 beers each, it was 30 bucks. Did you hear me? 30 bucks. I had a great Friday, and I got some important work done on my blog after lunch. I thank Colony Pizza for that, and I’m writing lunch off as a business expense.