At a university serving the state with the best pizza in the world, finding a good slice is a serious concern. Binghamton University has five food service locations that serve pizza. Each of the four dining halls — Hinman Dining Hall, Appalachian Collegiate Center, College-in-the-Woods Dining Hall and Chenango Champlain Collegiate Center (C4) — as well as CopperTop Pizzeria in the Marketplace offers its own slices or personal pies with pros and cons of each. Pipe Dream’s editorial staff conducted a blind taste test of one slice from each location, and we kept the location a secret from the panel until after they had tried them all.
For our test, we asked the panel to rate the cheese, sauce and crust separately, and also to score the pizza overall, with the score ranging from one to 10, one being worst and 10 being best. Finally, editors guessed which sample was from which location.
The results were not what we expected. Hinman pizza was just as popular as that of CopperTop among our panel, with each of those slices receiving three votes. C4 received two votes, and College-in-the-Woods and Appalachian received one vote each.
Most of the panel could tell which samples were from which location, but some slices threw them for a loop. Two editors thought that the C4 pizza was from CopperTop, and another two thought Hinman pizza was from CopperTop. For all of the excitement when CopperTop replaced Pandini’s, the slices are apparently not a particularly remarkable addition to campus pizza offerings.
Getting a slice in the Marketplace will cost you more than double what it would in a dining hall. CopperTop is $2.49 per plain slice, while the slices in the dining halls cost 89 cents each. The personal pizza at College-in-the-Woods, which we purchased with one topping because plain cheese was not available, cost $2.54.
The averages below are calculated from each individual location’s overall score, and the comments are taken verbatim from our editors.
College-in-the-Woods Dining Hall — 4.1/10
$2.54 for personal pizza with one topping
“Very meh. Lacks pizazz.”
“Visually looks gross. Bad.”
“Looks gross, tastes like Lunchables.”
Appalachian Collegiate Center — 4.3/10
89 cents for one slice of plain pizza
“This wouldn’t be good, if it wasn’t Binghamton, but given the competition, you could do much worse.”
“Tastes like plastic.”
“Feels so gross.”
Chenango Champlain Collegiate Center — 4.9/10
89 cents for one slice of plain pizza
“Words cannot convey the awfulness (I’d give this negative ratings if possible).”
“It was garlicky and super dank.”
“No sauce.”
Hinman Dining Hall — 5.3/10
89 cents for one slice of plain pizza
“It actually tasted pleasant. The others were bearable to unbearable.”
“Best overall taste.”
“All I tasted was cheese.”
CopperTop Pizzeria — 5.9/10
$2.49 for one slice of plain pizza
“Not terrible.”
“The cheese and crust were yummy.”
“The pizza tasted boring.”