When Malek Ameli-Grillon found out that Antoon’s raised the price of a large cheese pizza to $6, plus tax, he was devastated. College life, as he knew it, was ruined.
“Who carries $6.42 on them? $5 is such a convenient price,” Ameli, an undeclared sophomore, said.
One by one, the pizza shops of Atwood Street have raised their prices, pushing Oakland’s famed $5 pizza into extinction. Sorrento’s, which has sold $5 pizzas for almost a decade, raised its prices to $6 a year and a half ago. Pizza Romano increased prices at the beginning of 2015, and Antoon’s was the last to go when it bumped its beloved $5 pizza up to $6, plus tax, this August.
“We just couldn’t make money anymore at those prices,” Sorrento’s manager Eric Majeski said.
According to Pizza Romano manager Camille Durak, the cost of the cheese the shop uses rose from $1.08 per pound to $2.95 per pound in the past two years. Durak said Pizza Romano isn’t willing to sacrifice quality by switching to a less expensive cheese.
“If you look at the pizza business, cheese is expensive,” Durak said. “And the other things are also getting more expensive.”
If pizza shops wanted to survive, they had to bury the $5 pie. Less than understanding, Pitt students lamented the breaking pizza news on Twitter.
“Just paid $6.42 for antoon’s. My heart is broken. #bringback5dollarpizza,” Pitt student Brett Dymek tweeted Aug. 28.
Just paid $6.42 for antoon’s. My heart is broken. #bringback5dollarpizza
— Brett Dymek (@Dymek517) August 28, 2015
“BREAKING: Antoons is raising the price of their pizza to $6. The era of the Oakland $5 pizza is officially over. I don’t know what to say,” Pitt alum J.D. Schroeder tweeted Aug. 11.
BREAKING: Antoons is raising the price of their pizza to $6. The era of the Oakland $5 pizza is officially over. I don’t know what to say
— JD Schroeder (@Sta7ic) August 11, 2015
The second stage of the grieving process was skepticism, and Pitt sophomore Dominic Stanley said he doesn’t think the new price of a pie adds up.
“It was worth it for $5,” Stanley, a chemistry major, said, “but who’s gonna pay $6.42 for that stuff?”
Frannie McDermott, a sophomore history major, said she thinks the price increase will hurt business for the pizza shops in Oakland, but the new cost may come with a health benefit.
“Maybe people will stop drunk eating now,” McDermott said.
Other students like pizza too much to let the increase get in the way. Olivia Cypher, a junior communication major who eats pizza about once a week, said the death of the five dollar pizza won’t keep her from chowing down.
“I’m too lazy to walk out of Oakland, and I’m too much of a [pizza lover] to not eat pizza,” Cypher said. “I won’t want to pay more, but I’ll still do it.”