Arni's Restaurant of Lafayette, IN

Arni’s Pizza is really cool, and I guess it’s a chain. Being a small chain is a bit of a plus for my purposes, since I’m ideally most interested in pizzas that won’t require me to drive to Lafeyette every single time. As a restaurant, Arni’s is really cool. It’s got a model train room, a sports room, antique toys, books, and all kinds of other stuff, likely all tying into the personal interests of Arnold Cohen (founder of Arni’s). Their pizza is a lot like Pizza King. The crust is super thin and their sauce is thick, tangy, and zingy. It was cool to watch their assembly line. One dough stretching master passed their perfectly stretched dough to the sauce spreading master, to the cheesing, topping, cooking, and boxing/slicing master. As usual with my cheese pizza, I got a side of sauce which might have actually been straight tomato paste. Aside from watching the people make my to go order, I also had the privilege of witnessing them realize they forgot to make my pizza. Too bad I tipped before receiving my food, though I don’t really think tipping should correlate with quality of service, really. I think most everyone working in service has a right to make a little bit more than they do. Let’s talk ratios. Arni’s Pizza is rated 1cr/2ce/2ch Let’s talk scores. I’ll rate their crust 3/5. It’s a lot like the dough I make at home and roll out super thin. Arni’s crust is chewy and foldable, not crispy like a cracker. The bottom is lightly coated with corn meal(and seemingly salt and pepper), not quite charred. For a chewy thin crust, I think it could be a bit more yeasty and lively. They used one of those dough rollers to keep the crust from bubbling, which was probably a waste of time. It wasn’t dry, but there was still no “goo”, which the lack thereof may be due to the thickness of Arni’s sauce.

I’ll rate their sauce 4/5. It’s good and really my kind of thing. It might not be your kind of thing. Maybe it should be.

Overall quality gets a 4/5, which I feel is being a bit tough. However, Non-Bloomington Rules apply. If the crust was better, maybe they’d get a 5/5 for overall. If I wasn’t being a little generous with my sauce score, maybe overall quality would get 5/5. The cheese didn’t have much stretch, but that’s fine. I just think the whole thing could have had more pizzazz. Speaking of pizzazz, Arni’s gets a 4/5 for style. I love when a restaurant is decorated without being hip or gimmicky. However, I also like when an inner city hole in the wall can confidently let their food speak for itself. I love Arni’s pizza… I don’t know if it was too much like Pizza King or if that style of pizza is just not remarkable enough to give Arni’s a 5/5 for style. So all right Arni’s Restaurant. Your pizza gets a 75%! I’ll be back.