During the month of April, The Pause Kitchen has blessed us with the Philly Cheesesteak Pizza and the Birthday Cake Shake.
On the Birthday Cake Shake, I really don’t like birthday cake, but I can’t fault it for being what it was presented as. It tasted like someone put a birthday cake and ice cream in a blender. The Pause Kitchen nailed it. If you like birthday cake, you should try this shake. It even had sprinkles.
I should mention, however, that the Philly Cheesesteak Pizza did not become available to purchase until about halfway through the month. I was regularly infuriated because I had gone to the Pause expecting to have my cravings for Philly Cheesesteak fulfilled, only to be informed that the ingredients had not yet arrived. The posters said ‘Pizza of the Month,’ not ‘Pizza of Half of the Month.’
When the Philly Cheesesteak Pizza finally became available, my expectations were high because I figured that if the ingredients took so long for The Pause Kitchen to obtain, the ingredients were going to be of premium quality. I was expecting fresh, tender beef. I was expecting cheese made from only the finest milk. I was expecting hydrated, crisp green peppers and onions. But what did I get? I got rubber. The beef was so flavorless, it could have been salted cloth. Why was this beef so difficult to obtain? Why would St. Olaf pay for this beef at all? The school should’ve been paid for consuming it. I should’ve been paid for consuming it. Needless to say, we’ve been wronged.
My disappointment with the Philly Cheesesteak Pizza has only served to reinforce the dilemma that I’ve had ever since arriving at St. Olaf. I don’t want to eat any more Domino’s, but pizza from The Pause Kitchen can be nasty. If The Pause Kitchen can improve the quality of its pizza, it could steal quite a bit of business away from Domino’s and turn a nice profit. That is going to take creativity and and a willingness to reinvent their identity – two things I don’t see in the The Pause Kitchen’s immediate future.
irwin2@stolaf.edu
