Hungry Howie's

Instead of spending six dollars on a frozen pizza why not treat yourself to a carryout pizza from Hungry Howies? They are my pizza equivalent of a soap opera. It is cheap, delicious and guilt free.The dogs will appreciate having flavored crust when you throw them the leftovers.
I love the addition of the craft sodas in the cooler.

This place may have moved -- the one I went to was actually right on Archer Road, about a block from where the Yelp map/address says.

I have to say that I am completely sold on Hungry Howie's as my "cheap pizza" option in the Gainesville area.

The prices are definitely on the low end -- I mean, down in Little Caesar's territory: $5.95 for a large pepperoni or cheese pizza, $10 for a specialty, with various specials and coupons in the local rags. You do have to wait for them to cook it, but I consider that a feature, not a bug (at the "we have'em sitting right here" places, you have no idea how long the pie has been sitting under a heat lamp).

The pies are reasonably generous with respect to cheese and toppings, especially for the price. We've tried the pepperoni, and also the "meat lover's" or whatever they call their equivalent, and the toppings are tasty and seem to be of good quality. Haven't tried a veggie pie, or even one with non-meat toppings, yet.

Each pizza comes with a free "crust flavoring" of the buyer's choice. Our first time out we chose "butter cheese," and haven't yet tried anything else, because the crust is so freaking good and we don't know if that's the general case or because of that particular flavoring choice and are kind of afraid to risk it. We'll be trying "ranch" and "garlic herb" and so on in the future. But not just yet.

So, whether it's due to the flavoring or not, the crust is flavorful and the "bones" area is nice and soft so you can actually eat the whole slice.

Is it the best pizza I've ever had? No, but it's good pizza with real value for price. I'll be trying some of the higher-end (Leonardo's) and cool (Satchel's) joints in town (we've only lived in Gainesville for a couple of months), but I'm pretty sure I've got my go-to place for cheap pizza night.

Decent pizza for the price. I usually always get a large pepperoni pizza with Cajun crust. Its your typical chain pizza joint, but for $5.95 ($6.31 with tax), its a good deal. I prefer the taste of Hungry Howies over other pizza chains in the area, plus you get to choose the flavor of the crust that you want.

We ordered this pizza and took advantage of their free crust flavoring. I chose garlic and herb, it was not bad. We ended up eating it an hour or so after bringing it home and it was still pretty good.

Quality of pizza is so-so (it IS hungry howie's after all) and the selection is average at best, but how can you go wrong with its dirt-cheap prices? This location is convenient and clean so you'll be plenty comfortable gorging on endless slices of pizza (including their dessert pizzas). Depending on what you want, you can even request pies made to include in the buffet. I've grown up and moved on from this place but as a poor college student this works.

Although I appreciate cheap pizza as much as the next broke college bum, Hungry Howies was mediocre when I first started eating it back in '98 and has plumbed the depths ever since. Their selling point was "flavored crust," which is the only thing that separates their pizza from generic freezer frisbees from the store. I stopped eating their pizza and moved on to their "subs" (calzones, actually) and their pasta, both of which were actually much better than the pizza offerings. However, their lack of quality continued unabated (wilting lettuce/greenish tomatoes with the subs, mysterious gray spots within the bread provided with the pasta, price increased while portion size decreased). The very last time I ordered food from them, the calzone fell apart due to the undercooked underside's inability to hold all of that greasy meat. Sorry, but I prefer my raw dough to be cookie. Two stars for nostalgia's sake.