Cheap seats: Planet Pizza is right next to Eye Spy on West Washington Street. (In case you didn't know, that's not a real loading dock. It's a bar.) All the available pies are on display in a glass case. Tell the guy what you want and he'll throw it back in the oven to crisp and heat it up. While you wait, grab a seat in the tiny dining room with all the other 2 a.m. snackers trying to sober up for the drive home. That, or join the swarm of sidewalk smokers.
Cheap Treats: This is New York style pizza, so the slices are thin and big. They fold in half just like a NYC slice, but I must say that the crispy crust goes a bit limp at the pointed end. There's also none of that orange grease that trickles out of so many Midtown pies. Whether that's good or bad is up to personal taste -- and whether you're wearing that shirt you save just for Friday nights at Dragon Room.
A cheese slice starts at $2.75 and goes up as you add toppings. Veggie, Hawaiian, meat lover and spinach/tomato are all $4.25. One of my favorites, barbecue chicken pizza is also $4.25, topped with barbecue sauce and little splats of shredded meat.
I'm not a big fan of the Sicilian pizza, which swaps out the thin, crisp triangular slice for a rectangle of thick dough. It's just too much bread and too little sauce to go with the toppings. I'm also not a fan of Planet Pizza's mushrooms canned, instead of fresh. Calzones and pepperoni rolls are just a little outside our $5 Cheap Eats budget, but there's always the $2 pretzel.
Cheap Gas: Nothing settles a stomach of beer, bourbon and "something green" like starch, cheese and grease from Planet Pizza. But one last bit of advice -- stay the hell away from the canned soda! It's $1.75! Damn, during happy hour, you can get beer for that kind of money!
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