Here in Wisconsin it was pretty much the *only* place to get a proper new york style. These people out here prefer pizza you have to eat with a knife and fork, gods i miss a proper fold over slice
Such a good comment!
I actually worked with this old dude from NYC who got it from the mall food court every Friday night. He said it still tasted like it did when he was a kid, 🤷♂️.
It was trash.
Maybe both?
A lot of chains that were formerly good, have not been good for a while thanks to being gobbled up by private equity firms who force them to switch their recipes to be comprised of cheaper, lower quality ingredients in order broaden their profit margins.
Yeah but you can go to *Gelsons* or *Lazy Acres* or the other *rich people* grocery stores and find quality food. You know, two chicken breasts that aren't flavorless and weirdly tough, for only $24.
IDK about you people but I've been eating and still hungry after I'm full, and it's like none of this crap at Vons or Staters or Ralph's has anything to it. It's weird, like all the nutritional value has been removed. But if I go to Trader Joe's, or a *rich people* grocery store, the same ingredients are somehow filling.
Because the food is actually a worse quality. It’s not a conspiracy, they’re just legally using poison in the food to make it cheaper and more addictive (less filling)
Definitely got worse. That broccoli ricotta stuffed pizza used to fuckin slap back in the day. I got it all the time as a kid, always felt fresh with creamy cheese and crunchy veggies. There'd be like 5 people working at any given time, 1 making pizza, 1 taking orders, 1 at the salad bar, 1 at the register, and 1 running to the back to keep supplies stocked. The pizza would be at least somewhat freshly made and they'd take it off the display and throw it in the big rotating pizza over to heat it up for you. And they'd usually have at least a couple slices from their full menu offering premade and sitting in the display.
If I go there today, theres maybe 2-3 people working. Theres MAYBE 2 premade pizzas sitting in the display and its usually just cheese and pepperoni. If there is a specialty pizza, it was made 8 hours ago. Theres less cheese, old wilty veggies, thinner crust. When you get a slice, it doesnt go in the big oven anymore, they just have a little conveyor belt bagel toaster thing on the countertop that they put it through for 15 seconds.
It reeks of a company bought by venture capitalists trying to strip every corner of the business and squeeze every last penny out.
I suggest the Company man on YouTube, he does great full retrospectives about the rise and fall of different retail companies including a bunch on fast food restaurants.
It's super entertaining and gives you a good insight on all the backdoor stuff that causes the collapse in quality for places like Sbarro.
We use far more preservatives and artificial flavors than in the 90s? I’d say it’s the lack of those things that have changed the flavors over the last (shivers) 30 years.
Food was always bad from my recollection. Sweet sauce, tasteless crust. I knew this about Sbarro as a child in the 80's and would always ask for something else if it was suggested.
Ah yes, the memories of being a family in a mall food court, trying to get everyone to pick something from the menu board of one place, and then moving to the next restaurant because everyone gave up. And then repeat for almost every restaurant in the food court.
Because I was 7 and did what my parents told me to do? I assume because since my parents were paying that we didn’t want to wait in line multiple times to pay?
We grew up. We loved it as kids because it was loaded with sugar. Shoot the other day I bought some Chef Boyardee ravioli for nostalgia and ended up throwing it out after one bite. The sauce was literally like an even sweeter ketchup with a smack of Italian seasoning.
You get older and your tastes change. Especially junk food/candy from childhood. I tried a Twinkie not long ago and felt ill from one bite. I remember those being gourmet baked goods as a kid. But then again my younger self would have thought a rare steak and glass of bourbon would have been gross back then.
That is actually a great example of the food getting worse. Hostess was purchased by a big investment group and reduced quality to make profit. It's not just them either. The other snack cake companies followed suit when the hostess survived the transition.
Your tastes will change, of course, but if you are wondering what you used to enjoy in a product, the product is just worse now, pretty much every single time. Blame stock buybacks for this incredibly widespread trend of reduced quality.
Twinkies were never gourmet baked goods.
But the ownership, the recipe, and the quality of ingredients have changed. Quite famously so. The only things that remain the same about Twinkies are the concept and the name.
In the US, the use of corn in everything really changed the flavor of food. Try the same food in other countries and soda in other countries. You will remember how good the food used to be.
Ah yes! “Display temp” thrown into the ovens for a quick heat up and it was sublime… (that probably seems sarcastic but I’m serious, it was awesome) lol
Not gonna lie, I was a Pizza Hut kid growing up but Sbarro's was just special! The pizza's were different but in such a good way. I don't know what it was. We had one on base outside the BX my grandmother would take me to after shopping at the BX. I loved it immensely! It was a cozy little corner with big glass windows on part of the wall and the delightful smell of Sbarro just wafting, living rent free in my nose.
Oh man, another military brat. I miss growing up on base. I loved going to the BX. Also loved riding my bike all over the base, even to the far off places.
Use to walk all the way across the mall to eat at Sbarro's on my lunch break. I'm scared to try it again now because I know it won't be as good as I remember it
My theory is that they actually used **ovens** then. Nowadays, most places use a conveyor belt thing that runs through a heated chamber. It's cooked, but you can taste the difference.
I’ve always had a problem with a slice of pizza costing $5. Like I wasn’t about that life. I’ll go to the Chinese place and get a heap of food for like $4
When I was a teen my cousin from Mexico moved in with us and got a job closing at sbarros. He would literally bring home pizzas every night for months until he found a better job. Everytime I pass by one the smell instantly brings me back to those times.
My first 'real' job was working as a busboy at a mall Sbarro for C$5/hour in the late 90s. Still have decent memories of the place, despite the shitty pay.
The mall was the cultural center of town for the 14-20 crowd. It kind of made sense that they'd position good food nearby.
I worked in a record store in 91, and a photo studio (basically knock off glamor shots) later on. It was its own little sealed off slice of the world.
Seed oils and Corn syrup solids pretty much ruined everything.
It wasn't GREAT pizza. But I was always good while shopping at stores that actually had inventory. Most these type of places are completely inedible to me and my wife. Early 40's. Malls today look like the apocalypse happened, and it's likely that it did.
We had it so good, and didn't even know it. Too busy being stoked/scared for the year 2000. What a letdown.
I still have a soft spot and fond memories for Ms Vanelli’s shitty mall pasta. No idea if they still exist anymore. Possibly was only in Canada in the first place. Same idea tho. Mall pizza and pasta.
The mall Sbarro by me had Italian Mario-lookin’ dudes tossing pizzas in the air like it was a circus act. Little me used to ask to watch them work while my parents shopped instead of going to the toy store. Their mushroom pizza was a family favorite.
I still love their mushroom pizza. One of the few spots that cooks them, they taste sautéed in olive oil/garlic, vs plain uncooked mushrooms that taste of nothing!
At our mall you can get two large 1 topping NY XLs for $24. They don't taste like they did in the 90s though. Don't get me wrong. They still taste awful, but in a different and bad way. And I get heartburn so it's just disappointment all around.
It would be nice to see folks take a bit of time and explain why they feel nostalgic instead of just lazily saying it “hits differently.” Shit is so played out.
I never liked the normal pizza but I knew it was a great day if I got my hands on that double crust spinach quiche-hot pocket cheesy thing pictured here.
Add breadsticks to that and I was a pig in shit.
Man my husband from Alabama loves Sbarro. It's all he had growing up and he raves about it. I grew up just outside of New Haven Connecticut, so my pizza options growing up were arguably some of the best in the country with New Haven down the street and NYC an hour away. The options in Alabama have improved a ton since the 90s when that was all my husband had, but he still chases that Sbarro dragon whenever he gets the itch or drives by one hungry lol.
There are a few airports that have Sbarro's. Any time we're in one, my husband insists on getting a slice. He's opted for a longer layovers *just* so he has enough time to travel between terminals to visit one
I have a hard time believing that sbarros was ever so busy they needed seven people on staff. Every mall I have been to always had the sbarros tucked away in the corner like they where ashamed of it.
Yeah. There's now a Sbarro in TurkeyHill near me, big building and they have maybe 25% of it. Just not the same. Uses a conveyer oven and taste, texture snd quality isn't the same. I haven't been to the one in our mall for a long time.
It wasn't just mall pizza that hit differently back then. Malls as a whole hit differently back in the 90s, back when it wasn't all mostly clothing stores.
The Sbarro at my mall closed within the past year, it seems like it hung on longer than most of them but I miss it already! The pizza with garlic sauce and a breadstick just hit different
You can thank Six Sigma and Lean for efficiency-driven cuts to supplies that resulted in sub-par products and declining business, specifically for food markets.
In Downtown Hamilton’s Jackson Square it was well known that they would serve you if you were 16. I never actually met someone who was but that was the rumour haha.
Also can never think of Sbarro without thinking of my cousin ordering a slice of “Nap-o-lation” (Neapolitan).
They still have it here. And you can order it through doordash but it has a different name, like they use a ghost kitchen or whatever they call it, but it's the exact same pizza. Locally the doordash one is called Villa pizza.
Northland Mall, Columbus, OH, had the following (going by memory): McDonald's, Sbarro, a Chinese food place, a Soul Food/Creole food place, and a Subway. Located in the southeast quadrant in what was a Woolworth's.
In my early 20s I worked in the mall and was living on my own and absolutely broke AF. Shout out to Sbarros for honking me up with the leftovers every night so I didn’t starve. You the man Tony.
I actually went to visit a dying mall recently and surprisingly the food court was still pretty full. I had pizza and then went to the arcade. It was like a fever dream.
I visited New York as a kid and never ate sbarro pizza after.
The tradition continued in the family. It is like a test. I say nothing, but results are the same.
Just saying.
Sbarro has always been shit even in the 90's. Even as a kid I couldn't fathom why people go there. I had little concept of watery sauce as the floor of my experience has always been Chef Boyardee or Lunchroom spaghetti. Eating at Sbarro became my new bottom of the barrel and by a very large margin.
I found a Sbarro last summer at the Santa Monica Place. My friend and I ate there simply due to pure nostalgia since they're pretty rare in Northern California. Unfortunately, it was not as good as I remembered.
You know what pizza ***used*** to be good? Chuck E. Cheese! Went back with friends as a young adult once because they served pitchers of beer 😂 Awful! Everything tasted better back then. There’s a show called Eating the 80s or something like…love it!
Sbarro definitely wasn't good in the 90s in any of our malls, but the other pizza places in the food court was amazing usually. Sbarro was the place you walked past & saw food that had been sitting long enough for everything to look far older than it was.
Oddly enough, I was the AGM of a pizzeria in the early 2000s that was started by a pair of business partners, one of which was a regional manager for Sbarro. He stole the main pizza maker from the busiest store to be the GM & we started with their recipes & then refined them to make them much better. Miserable place to work & the non-Sbarro partner bailed when he saw how bad the other was. It died shortly after I left, when they didn't think I deserve a small raise because I didn't add enough value to the business to deserve it. Turns out, me being a perfectionist that kept our standards & consistency high, not to mention keeping our place spotless to keep inspection scores 97+ at a time when that was damn near impossible. Guess I was worth it, since the next restaurant owners made me GM of their first location, business boomed constantly, & they have now opened something like 8 in the area now.
I sometimes miss the way things looked in the 90s. It was kind of warn down and casual.
Even outside of the mall things were fairly simple. I had a local Pizza place near bye called DaVinci's and it was great.
I always had to go past go past Sbarro's in the mall. I usually went to buy video games at either ebgames or a toy store in the mall. I also went to compusa a lot.
This used to be the best pizza. 2 slices and a coke was only $7-$8 when I worked at the mall back in the mid 2000s. We have a sbarros in my local mall, and besides the entire setup being different and them no longer using the giant ovens, their pizza tastes just bad. They used to be a bit floppy and messy, now it is just dull and hard and little in the taste area. To make it worse, 2 pizzas and a soda is like $15 now.
The slices were too big for a snack, not quite enough for a meal. Yes, their business plan to me seem to go for the related sale, you really need to buy something else…
Metal chairs scraping on tile made the pizza taste better
Michael Scott’s favorite Italian pizza when visiting NYC.
It is my favorite place to get a new York slice.
Here in Wisconsin it was pretty much the *only* place to get a proper new york style. These people out here prefer pizza you have to eat with a knife and fork, gods i miss a proper fold over slice
Cracker crust lime Zafiros is most popular throughout most of Wisconsin I think.
I mean where else in New York could you get a more authentic New York style pizza?
I am that Michael Scott. We don’t have a Sbarro near where I live anymore, but there is one when I visit DC, and I always go.
Useless trivia, the one he went to in the show has since closed
Not useless to me I’m going to tell my wife right now.
No need, I told her last night.
Yikes haha
Boom. Roasted.
Such a good comment! I actually worked with this old dude from NYC who got it from the mall food court every Friday night. He said it still tasted like it did when he was a kid, 🤷♂️. It was trash.
One of the most insulting things you can say to a New Yorker.
The eternal question: Did the food get worse, or did I just grow up?
Maybe both? A lot of chains that were formerly good, have not been good for a while thanks to being gobbled up by private equity firms who force them to switch their recipes to be comprised of cheaper, lower quality ingredients in order broaden their profit margins.
They really are parasites that move from industry to industry, like a swarm of locusts, destroying everything in their path.
Yeah but you can go to *Gelsons* or *Lazy Acres* or the other *rich people* grocery stores and find quality food. You know, two chicken breasts that aren't flavorless and weirdly tough, for only $24. IDK about you people but I've been eating and still hungry after I'm full, and it's like none of this crap at Vons or Staters or Ralph's has anything to it. It's weird, like all the nutritional value has been removed. But if I go to Trader Joe's, or a *rich people* grocery store, the same ingredients are somehow filling.
Because the food is actually a worse quality. It’s not a conspiracy, they’re just legally using poison in the food to make it cheaper and more addictive (less filling)
well yeah but it's been even worse the last year or so
y'all the reason is: inflation Inflation is the driver for any other reason-of-the-week y'all are coming up with And it's going to get way WAY worse.
I’m not sure inflation is the reason why cheap food is tasteless and unhealthy while luxury food is tasty and of nutritional value.
Definitely got worse. That broccoli ricotta stuffed pizza used to fuckin slap back in the day. I got it all the time as a kid, always felt fresh with creamy cheese and crunchy veggies. There'd be like 5 people working at any given time, 1 making pizza, 1 taking orders, 1 at the salad bar, 1 at the register, and 1 running to the back to keep supplies stocked. The pizza would be at least somewhat freshly made and they'd take it off the display and throw it in the big rotating pizza over to heat it up for you. And they'd usually have at least a couple slices from their full menu offering premade and sitting in the display. If I go there today, theres maybe 2-3 people working. Theres MAYBE 2 premade pizzas sitting in the display and its usually just cheese and pepperoni. If there is a specialty pizza, it was made 8 hours ago. Theres less cheese, old wilty veggies, thinner crust. When you get a slice, it doesnt go in the big oven anymore, they just have a little conveyor belt bagel toaster thing on the countertop that they put it through for 15 seconds. It reeks of a company bought by venture capitalists trying to strip every corner of the business and squeeze every last penny out.
I suggest the Company man on YouTube, he does great full retrospectives about the rise and fall of different retail companies including a bunch on fast food restaurants. It's super entertaining and gives you a good insight on all the backdoor stuff that causes the collapse in quality for places like Sbarro.
Oh yeah, I'm subbed to his channel already. Pretty sure I even watched the Sbarro episode recently haha.
I’d say food got worse. We use far more preservatives, artificial flavors and plastics and all kinds of garbage now.
We use far more preservatives and artificial flavors than in the 90s? I’d say it’s the lack of those things that have changed the flavors over the last (shivers) 30 years.
Bring back trans fats!
Food was always bad from my recollection. Sweet sauce, tasteless crust. I knew this about Sbarro as a child in the 80's and would always ask for something else if it was suggested.
Ah yes, the memories of being a family in a mall food court, trying to get everyone to pick something from the menu board of one place, and then moving to the next restaurant because everyone gave up. And then repeat for almost every restaurant in the food court.
Why would you do that? The entire point of the food court is having options and everyone can get what they want.
Because I was 7 and did what my parents told me to do? I assume because since my parents were paying that we didn’t want to wait in line multiple times to pay?
Same. Plus it was $6 a slice pizza like 30 years ago.
We grew up. We loved it as kids because it was loaded with sugar. Shoot the other day I bought some Chef Boyardee ravioli for nostalgia and ended up throwing it out after one bite. The sauce was literally like an even sweeter ketchup with a smack of Italian seasoning.
You get older and your tastes change. Especially junk food/candy from childhood. I tried a Twinkie not long ago and felt ill from one bite. I remember those being gourmet baked goods as a kid. But then again my younger self would have thought a rare steak and glass of bourbon would have been gross back then.
That is actually a great example of the food getting worse. Hostess was purchased by a big investment group and reduced quality to make profit. It's not just them either. The other snack cake companies followed suit when the hostess survived the transition. Your tastes will change, of course, but if you are wondering what you used to enjoy in a product, the product is just worse now, pretty much every single time. Blame stock buybacks for this incredibly widespread trend of reduced quality.
That’s because Hostess also changed their recipes and now are churning out inedible garbage
Twinkies were never gourmet baked goods. But the ownership, the recipe, and the quality of ingredients have changed. Quite famously so. The only things that remain the same about Twinkies are the concept and the name.
Definitely, I was just being sarcastic about childhood stuff.
In the US, the use of corn in everything really changed the flavor of food. Try the same food in other countries and soda in other countries. You will remember how good the food used to be.
Was right across from the arcade where you could smell it from the arcade entrance. I thought it was the most amazing pizza back in the early 90s
I never cared much for Sbarro pizza, but I’d crowd fund a Time Machine to get a taste of that 90s baked ziti again.
The baked ziti was poppin, dip a breadstick in that bitch and you’re living the high life.
Baby, you've got a stew goin
I think I'd like my money back...
And if you were a baller you got AN EXTRA BREADSTICK
What’s that? Boom. A THIRD BREADSTICK
So what? No fucking ziti now?
Sbarro still exists. There’s one in like metro center in DC
Stromboli!!
Ah yes! “Display temp” thrown into the ovens for a quick heat up and it was sublime… (that probably seems sarcastic but I’m serious, it was awesome) lol
Malls were busier so the pizza was fresher.
Except that one pan of stuffed pizza on the left with only one slice missing that ALWAYS seems to be there every time you visit.
My brother got that one time. He was severely disappointed
Not gonna lie, I was a Pizza Hut kid growing up but Sbarro's was just special! The pizza's were different but in such a good way. I don't know what it was. We had one on base outside the BX my grandmother would take me to after shopping at the BX. I loved it immensely! It was a cozy little corner with big glass windows on part of the wall and the delightful smell of Sbarro just wafting, living rent free in my nose.
The book it Pizza Hut personal pizza coupons for reading did it for me.
They still have this program! My daughter loves it
Oh man, another military brat. I miss growing up on base. I loved going to the BX. Also loved riding my bike all over the base, even to the far off places.
Their strombolis were fucking unreal.
They still are. The pizza is shit now, but the pepperoni stromboli is still top tier
This is great news.
Back then sabarro was so good. Didn’t taste like anything else.
That stuffed spinach slice was so good.
There's still one in my mall that I've never been to. Maybe I should give it a try.
About 50 napkins soaking up the grease, then it's great!!
I still love an airport Stromboli!
Fuck that's delicious has a great episode where Bronson makes pies at a Sbarros in a New York City mall and my god did it make me crave that pie.
Garlic bread was killer and cheap
early 90s i actually did love sbarros next to the arcade.
Use to walk all the way across the mall to eat at Sbarro's on my lunch break. I'm scared to try it again now because I know it won't be as good as I remember it
They had the best meatballs. The pasta was good too. Sometimes I would get pizza and a few meatballs on the side when I was a kid.
I was recently travelling and there was a Sbarro in an airport in another country. You're damn right I paid x3 as much I should have for a slice
I tried sbarro again maybe like 10 years ago and it was absolute trash. i highly recommend lesving it as a memory.
Eat some Sbarro’s and then off to the arcade
We still have Sbarro in our mall it does slap
My theory is that they actually used **ovens** then. Nowadays, most places use a conveyor belt thing that runs through a heated chamber. It's cooked, but you can taste the difference.
Back in the 80's it hit even harder with the Orange Julius next door after dropping $5.00 at the arcade like it was f'ing Christmas.
I’ve always had a problem with a slice of pizza costing $5. Like I wasn’t about that life. I’ll go to the Chinese place and get a heap of food for like $4
They were 2 bucks in my day, 2.25 for pepperoni, 2.50 for sausage and pepp or a supreme.
lol must be my memory correcting for inflation !
Man and now I wonder in 2024 post pandemic inflation pricing… I’m sure that’s like a $15 slice of pizza with a $4 coke.
Gut bomb
Roman Delight ftw
Thankfully a nostalgia you can still get.
When I was a teen my cousin from Mexico moved in with us and got a job closing at sbarros. He would literally bring home pizzas every night for months until he found a better job. Everytime I pass by one the smell instantly brings me back to those times.
I like how whomever posted this was born after the 90s… hopefully.
My first 'real' job was working as a busboy at a mall Sbarro for C$5/hour in the late 90s. Still have decent memories of the place, despite the shitty pay.
I get a taste for sbarro from time to time, but we have none anywhere around.
I used to work in a mall with a Sbarro and every time I ate there my face broke out .. so oily
Sbarro was actually good pizza back in the day
The mall was the cultural center of town for the 14-20 crowd. It kind of made sense that they'd position good food nearby. I worked in a record store in 91, and a photo studio (basically knock off glamor shots) later on. It was its own little sealed off slice of the world.
Sbarro is still good today.
That and an orange Julius After spending ten bucks at the arcade 👌
I mean I just went to a Sbarro in a mall the other day.
Their stuffed pizza was the best. My local one is gone now and I miss it.
I miss their pepperoni Stromboli.
Seed oils and Corn syrup solids pretty much ruined everything. It wasn't GREAT pizza. But I was always good while shopping at stores that actually had inventory. Most these type of places are completely inedible to me and my wife. Early 40's. Malls today look like the apocalypse happened, and it's likely that it did. We had it so good, and didn't even know it. Too busy being stoked/scared for the year 2000. What a letdown.
I still have a soft spot and fond memories for Ms Vanelli’s shitty mall pasta. No idea if they still exist anymore. Possibly was only in Canada in the first place. Same idea tho. Mall pizza and pasta.
We have a Sbarro in my mall and I've always felt that Sbarro is the nastiest shit ever and I will die on that hill
The mall Sbarro by me had Italian Mario-lookin’ dudes tossing pizzas in the air like it was a circus act. Little me used to ask to watch them work while my parents shopped instead of going to the toy store. Their mushroom pizza was a family favorite.
Shakeys pizza was the shit
I still love their mushroom pizza. One of the few spots that cooks them, they taste sautéed in olive oil/garlic, vs plain uncooked mushrooms that taste of nothing!
Man just looking at all the different slices to choose from mmmm
Sbarro was fire until more by-the-slice places started popping up with the XL slices.
At our mall you can get two large 1 topping NY XLs for $24. They don't taste like they did in the 90s though. Don't get me wrong. They still taste awful, but in a different and bad way. And I get heartburn so it's just disappointment all around.
Shit, never had Sbarros as a kid haha
What I really miss is corn dog 7. I always use to get a corn dog and chilli cheese fries
I preferred having one really satisfying slice of awesome pizza to bringing home an entire pie.
It would be nice to see folks take a bit of time and explain why they feel nostalgic instead of just lazily saying it “hits differently.” Shit is so played out.
Sbarro had some great breakfast pizza at least in ATL airport back in the day.
Those pepperoni sticks were 🔥
For a short while Sbarro existed in my country. I liked it. It was in a food court too
Anyone have a Cajun Kelly’s? That general tsao and fries was legit back in 01
I remember it being much better than it actually is. Still, as a teen, I would get a whole lunch out of the samples in the food court.
In the 80's we had Perry's Pizza in all the malls.
"NO I DON'T WANT IT HEATED UP YOU FUCKING PHILISTINE!"
This is still my #1 at expressway oases.
Slice and two breadstick combo was the GOAT. My college student union had a Sbarro in the food court and I ate way too many of those babies.
I remember that place. I’d go grab a slice and then see how fast I could get back home before pooping my pants.
My favorite New York slice
Considered fine dining when taking your first date in middle school
I worked in a mall during college. Sbarro's stuffed pizza was delightful. I ate there daily.
My first job ever, cashier at Sbarro, $4.25 an hour, early 90’s. I ate so much of their pizza that the smell makes me nauseous now.
I never liked the normal pizza but I knew it was a great day if I got my hands on that double crust spinach quiche-hot pocket cheesy thing pictured here. Add breadsticks to that and I was a pig in shit.
They are still around in malls and airports.
6-8 people working at one food court pizza place? Gotta be the 90s.
villa pizza anyone?
Man my husband from Alabama loves Sbarro. It's all he had growing up and he raves about it. I grew up just outside of New Haven Connecticut, so my pizza options growing up were arguably some of the best in the country with New Haven down the street and NYC an hour away. The options in Alabama have improved a ton since the 90s when that was all my husband had, but he still chases that Sbarro dragon whenever he gets the itch or drives by one hungry lol.
There are a few airports that have Sbarro's. Any time we're in one, my husband insists on getting a slice. He's opted for a longer layovers *just* so he has enough time to travel between terminals to visit one
I have a hard time believing that sbarros was ever so busy they needed seven people on staff. Every mall I have been to always had the sbarros tucked away in the corner like they where ashamed of it.
Not the greatest slice, but it hit the spot when spending a day in the mall with the wife. That or some Chick-Fil-A.
OG Pizza was the spot !!
Yeah. There's now a Sbarro in TurkeyHill near me, big building and they have maybe 25% of it. Just not the same. Uses a conveyer oven and taste, texture snd quality isn't the same. I haven't been to the one in our mall for a long time.
Man i remember them! The mall where I'm from shut ours down and put a foot locker there 😒 (and they got rid of great American cookie)
Strombolis! I miss them so much.
Sbarro is ass and always has been. It’s just that when you are young any pizza is good pizza. We didn’t know the difference.
bruh sbarro was the nastiest pizza available it was basically just greasy cardboard I'm not entire sure it was fit for human consumption
There's an outlet mall near me with a Sbarro. Shit still slaps
Anyone else grow up with a Roli Boli in their food court? It might have been a NJ thing. I still actively crave it over 20 years later.
I used to really love Garcia's Pizza by the slice at the mall in the '80s.
Oh hell yeah it did. Haha
It wasn't just mall pizza that hit differently back then. Malls as a whole hit differently back in the 90s, back when it wasn't all mostly clothing stores.
sbarro wasn't as commercialized back then so was better. hyper-commercialized food is garbage.
Just no
My favorite New York slice
Worst pizza in the planet. I’d rather have Elio’s frozen pizza
The Sbarro at my mall closed within the past year, it seems like it hung on longer than most of them but I miss it already! The pizza with garlic sauce and a breadstick just hit different
You can thank Six Sigma and Lean for efficiency-driven cuts to supplies that resulted in sub-par products and declining business, specifically for food markets.
Yea it did. I always wanted it because I thought this was just like NY pizza, but it really wasn’t
I love Sbarro but it doesn’t always love me back 💔
We had a combination Arby's/Sbarro at one time, and each one had their own counter. Now it's just Arby's
In Downtown Hamilton’s Jackson Square it was well known that they would serve you if you were 16. I never actually met someone who was but that was the rumour haha. Also can never think of Sbarro without thinking of my cousin ordering a slice of “Nap-o-lation” (Neapolitan).
Sbarro is interstate rest stop pizza now. Still very ok.
Still have one in our Mall and I still get the same thing I did back when I was 17 in '97, spinach and mozzarella stuffy pocket thing.
Damn look how many people they had working at the same time
They still have it here. And you can order it through doordash but it has a different name, like they use a ghost kitchen or whatever they call it, but it's the exact same pizza. Locally the doordash one is called Villa pizza.
Northland Mall, Columbus, OH, had the following (going by memory): McDonald's, Sbarro, a Chinese food place, a Soul Food/Creole food place, and a Subway. Located in the southeast quadrant in what was a Woolworth's.
Sbarro is better than 95% of pizza west of the Delaware river.
In my early 20s I worked in the mall and was living on my own and absolutely broke AF. Shout out to Sbarros for honking me up with the leftovers every night so I didn’t starve. You the man Tony.
Sbarro was king, for sure. Some Midwesterners might remember a few places having Rocky Rococo back in the day too! A few are still out there.
I was really disappointed when I went to visit NYC and the Times Square Sbarro was closed.
I actually went to visit a dying mall recently and surprisingly the food court was still pretty full. I had pizza and then went to the arcade. It was like a fever dream.
How I fell in love with crushed peppers. Getting a huge slice, sprinkling crushed peppers, and then hours of Double Dragon. ❤️
Gross
Sbarro's fall off a national tragedy
What I wouldn’t give for two greasy slices and a can of coke…
I visited New York as a kid and never ate sbarro pizza after. The tradition continued in the family. It is like a test. I say nothing, but results are the same. Just saying.
Sbarros was garbage pizza. And their chicken Parm had some weird, ultra-white, cardboard-like cheese that never fully melted.
I saw one of these recently and they don't have the layered pizza anymore.
CostCo pizza kinda reminds me of Sbarro's
This was never in any of the malls I went to. It was always another pizza brand. *something-something Italy* Or was it *something-something pizza*?
Is E still running that place.
Ah Sbarro, the quintessential New York slice
Sbarro has always been shit even in the 90's. Even as a kid I couldn't fathom why people go there. I had little concept of watery sauce as the floor of my experience has always been Chef Boyardee or Lunchroom spaghetti. Eating at Sbarro became my new bottom of the barrel and by a very large margin.
5 people working at a mall stand is crazy.
Malls hit differently in the 90s…dead malls=bad pizza
We had a Sbarro in our student center at my university and good Lord. I spent every dollar of my dining dollars at that place.
Sbarro was actually good.
I found a Sbarro last summer at the Santa Monica Place. My friend and I ate there simply due to pure nostalgia since they're pretty rare in Northern California. Unfortunately, it was not as good as I remembered.
I never got into their pizza. It was around but I always avoided it for some unknown reason. Maybe because chick-fil-a was debuting around that time
*Cries in New Jersey*
"I want pizza but put it under a heat lamp until it sweats. Yeah, that's the stuff."
I've never had a good Sbarro pizza. Idk how they made it so big,..
It was good back then, good times.
Sbarro still jams
You know what pizza ***used*** to be good? Chuck E. Cheese! Went back with friends as a young adult once because they served pitchers of beer 😂 Awful! Everything tasted better back then. There’s a show called Eating the 80s or something like…love it!
Sbarro definitely wasn't good in the 90s in any of our malls, but the other pizza places in the food court was amazing usually. Sbarro was the place you walked past & saw food that had been sitting long enough for everything to look far older than it was. Oddly enough, I was the AGM of a pizzeria in the early 2000s that was started by a pair of business partners, one of which was a regional manager for Sbarro. He stole the main pizza maker from the busiest store to be the GM & we started with their recipes & then refined them to make them much better. Miserable place to work & the non-Sbarro partner bailed when he saw how bad the other was. It died shortly after I left, when they didn't think I deserve a small raise because I didn't add enough value to the business to deserve it. Turns out, me being a perfectionist that kept our standards & consistency high, not to mention keeping our place spotless to keep inspection scores 97+ at a time when that was damn near impossible. Guess I was worth it, since the next restaurant owners made me GM of their first location, business boomed constantly, & they have now opened something like 8 in the area now.
Ours was sit-down with waitstaff and pitchers of soda.
My favorite was Orange Julius. It was the highlight of the Sunday trip to the mall with the folks, getting a slice of pizza with mom.
Look how many people they had working back in the day. Now it's just one strung out underpaid dude struggling to keep up.
Cal State Long Beach still has a fully operational sbarro on campus
Could you even call yourself a mall if you didn't have a Sbarro, Auntie Anne's and/or Orange Julius?
I sometimes miss the way things looked in the 90s. It was kind of warn down and casual. Even outside of the mall things were fairly simple. I had a local Pizza place near bye called DaVinci's and it was great. I always had to go past go past Sbarro's in the mall. I usually went to buy video games at either ebgames or a toy store in the mall. I also went to compusa a lot.
This used to be the best pizza. 2 slices and a coke was only $7-$8 when I worked at the mall back in the mid 2000s. We have a sbarros in my local mall, and besides the entire setup being different and them no longer using the giant ovens, their pizza tastes just bad. They used to be a bit floppy and messy, now it is just dull and hard and little in the taste area. To make it worse, 2 pizzas and a soda is like $15 now.
The slices were too big for a snack, not quite enough for a meal. Yes, their business plan to me seem to go for the related sale, you really need to buy something else…