In the wee hours of the morning, the South University Avenue area is crawling with students reaching the end of their nights out. These students will most likely agree that there is no better end to a night on the town than a late-night slice. When people do not want to wait in the long line at Joe’s or pay the premium at Pizza House, they don’t have to look any further than Church Street’s The Back Room.
The Back Room is a pizza-by-the-slice restaurant owned and operated by The Brown Jug Bar. It is popular as the budget option for late-night food in the area, but I decided to see how it fares at lunchtime.
Venturing into The Back Room in broad daylight for the first time was disorienting, with the swarms of drunk students replaced by a handful of adults on their lunch break. I ordered the standard slice of pepperoni pizza and was pleased to see that the slice was about a third of the whole pie.
After gawking at this apparent bang for my buck, I took the first bite. It was good! However, as I took bites two and three I began to develop some complaints. First of all, the crust was flavorless and so dense that it was difficult to swallow. Finishing the end of the slice became a chore. In the same bite, the sauce tasted like the cheapest spaghetti sauce on the shelf, but I suppose that cheap pizza requires cheap sauce. The slice was saved by the cheese and the pepperoni, both oddly flavorful with just the right amount of grease.
My lunch at The Back Room left much to be desired. The slice tasted like it came from a middle school cafeteria and it all just felt like the wrong environment.
That’s because it was the wrong environment. The right environment came about 13 hours later. South University Avenue was in its element — absolutely packed with students — and I joined the line that was flowing out the door. I ordered the same pepperoni slice. I took the first bite and, after a delightful night out on the town, I thought that it was the most delectable thing that I had ever eaten. The flavors exploded through the cheese, the meat and the sauce — being in a swarm of other ravenous patrons enjoying their pizza only heightened this experience. Nothing could ever top this slice of pizza, I thought.
Unfortunately, after that first bite, the euphoria of quenching my hunger began to fade. The slice slowly brought me back down to Earth. I was again plagued by a failure in the same key pizza element: the crust.
The biggest weakness that The Back Room faces is its crust. The density and doughiness paired with a lack of flavor make the slice hard to get through. The meal turning into a chore stops people from wanting more, contributing to the perceived inferiority of The Back Room compared to other pizza shops in Ann Arbor.
The Back Room surprised me. The pizza was unexpectedly flavorful to start out, but eventually, the negatives outweigh the flavor and end the experience on a bad note. The Back Room deserves its place as a late-night spot. But to elevate its status to an anytime restaurant, they seriously need to work out the crust.
I, along with the rest of the student body, will continue to hit The Back Room at the end of the night, but a daytime return is questionable.
Daily Arts Writer Will Castle can be reached at wcastle@umich.edu.