I’m Sorry Homeslice For Cheating On You With Mangia

Best pizza in Austin. Suck it Sags!

My good friend Aaron Saginaw (aka Sags) came into town this past weekend with his gf Mandy.  First thing we did once they came in was head to Homeslice.

Since it was a Friday night, I knew I had to use my trick to get a table.  It’s not really a trick, but it’s sly like a trick.  I only live a block away, so if I want to eat at say, 8pm, and avoid the hour and a half wait, I just walk over at 6:30, put my name down, go back home and hang out until I head back over there at 7:55.  Works like a charm.

Friday night, I walked over there an hour before Sags was due to arrive in town, and they said the wait was 10-15 minutes.  WTF?????  I asked Clare if I had in fact come into Homeslice Pizza.  She verified that I was in the right place, but had no clue why the line was not the usual hour plus.  I have no idea what was going on Friday night that enticed people away from Homeslice.

Once I came back, the line had increased to around 20-30 minutes.  Mandy is hypoglycemic and needed to eat pronto, so we ordered some garlic knots while waiting for a table out back.  So awesome.

Sags loves Mangia, and has to eat there at least once every time he comes to Austin.  I thought I could wean him off his misguided addiction with some tasty Homeslice.  Sags and Mandy really loved the food and vibe of Homeslice, but it wasn’t quite enough.

On Sunday, he wanted to hit up Mangia and invited me to come along.  I had to think about it.  On the one hand, he’s been my friend since preschool and drove four hours to see me.  On the other, I felt like I’d be cheating on Homeslice. Truthfully, Homeslice would probably not miss me robbing from their coffers for a meal or two, so I agreed to go.  It was a really weird experience.  I felt like I needed to take off my ring or something, and I hoped no one would recognize me there.

At Homeslice, I’m used to giving the pizza topping menu only a cursory glance to remind myself of the offerings.  But here they had different toppings and sauces.  This threw off my game.  Also, this pizza wasn’t free, so I had to dramatically scale back my topping choices.  More choices plus ever rising cost of each topping led to flustering and bewilderment.  I settled on anchovies and bleu cheese for a nice subtle pizza (ha!).

Verdict: the pizza was pretty good.  Magnia’s sloppy yet tasty stuffed pizza is hardly comparable to Homeslice’s traditional offerings.  They really are two different styles of pizza.  But Mangia’s environment was so much more sterile and lame.  We went to the one across the street from Wheatsville on Guadalupe, and it felt like a mall.  A/C  set to frigid, music set to crappy and lots of big open space that didn’t give any sense of atmosphere.  I yearned for the homey, funky vibe of Homeslice.

Luckily, since I eat free pizza all the freaking time, I won’t have long to wait.  I enjoyed the temporal pleasure of Mangia’s pizza, but afterward I felt guilty, like I needed to shower and apologize to Homeslice.  I have since cleansed my body of Mangia’s homewrecking smell, but I have yet to apologize, so here goes:

I’m sorry, Homeslice.  I hope Slicey forgives me.