Where NOT to go: Ben’s Pizzeria

Some of you peeplez out there in the Internet-ether may know that for a good long while I had quit dairy. The reasons why aren’t important because they’re boring to explain even for someone who loves to talk about themselves as much as I do. But I did quit. Cold turkey. Like no milk, cheese or cream or even ice cream came near my body for over a calendar year. And with the exception of missing cheese like whoa, it really wasn’t so bad.

Pizza, though. Pizza.

So yeah, sometimes I cheat. A lot.  And lately I’ve been really budgeting and pizza is mad cheap in this city of York so that’s what I do.  I wrote a while back about some of the truly dope pizza places in this town. And now, I’m writing about a fucking shitty one.

Ben’s Pizzeria.  It’s in the heart of the miserable clusterfuck just south of NYU-central so I guess it thinks that it’s no big deal if their service, quality and ingredients fucking suck since drunk college kids are drunk college kids and will eat just about anything they can afford.  But I’m a grown Whoa-man and I don’t mess, so the other night left me none too happy.

It had been a long and somewhat trying day and I was starving and broke. So I was like ‘ok, pizza.’ No sooner had I said the words to myself than an incredible degree of bone-laziness took over.  I knew I needed sustenance but I also knew that I was not going to walk more than three blocks in any direction to get it.  There, just at the corner, was Ben’s.

After navigating a line of -what else?- drunk college kids, I finally asked the guy for my slice with black olives (that’s how I like my pizza, y’all). After what seemed like waaaay too short of a time in the old Bari oven, the man  tossed it on a plate with a surly grimace and shoved it in my direction. “$3.50” he barked, staring in disgust at a vagrant who had staggered in to steal napkins.

That seemed like a lot for a shit pizza place but what do I know?

I know shitty pizza, people.  And this was that.  Gelatinous, almost clear mozzarella, soggy crust and the most bland sauce ever to be foisted upon my tastebuds.  Not only did an almost $4 slice of pizza suck so hard that I couldn’t even finish it BUT I even wasted my dairy-cheat on it.

Let’s all band together and run this place outta town so they can bring my beloved, but now defunct Jamaican Flavors back to that neighborhood.

Ben’s Pizzeria
123 MacDougal Street @ W 3rd St.
[The Village]