The Colonial Pizza and Spaghetti House
138 Spring Garden |
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True to our word in search of the best pizza in the Lehigh Valley, we traveled east following the yeast to the Colonial Pizza and Spaghetti House in the shadows of College Hill, home to you know whom. We took along Harrison "The Mind" Bailey, former Leopard football captain and now a master teacher at our Centennial School, in case we needed some quick footwork as to why Lehigh folks ventured this far afield scouting for pizza. A likely story during this one-sided football season.
Our hopes were high for a superb pizza based upon results of queries that Perry had made in his graduate research course. Using a qualitative research procedure known as triple-S triangulation (slice sans sauce), we found out that Provost Nelson Markley, another Leopard alum, and his bride, Pat, frequented the Colonial 37 years ago. With a nostalgic smile, Nelson revealed that their favorite toppings were ham and onion.
In the vast unknown lands beyond Bethlehem known as the Far Easton, the Colonial is just over and down a block from Genesis Bicycle Shop left off the last exit on 22 before the Delaware River. Up a short flight of stairs, we were in a wood paneled room typical of many hometown pizza houses. No signs of Lafayette here -- rather, many local families with children enjoying pizza as they have for 54 years in this friendly pie-eyed ambiance.
Following our tried and tested procedure, we asked Laura for a large regular pizza and another with half mushrooms and half pepperoni. It turned out that the Colonial serves up only one size, 12 inches, which in pizza lexicon means a medium. We had to adjust our methodology because our droop test requires an 18 inch pizza. Engineering Dean Harvey Stenger pointed that gravity will exert force as a function of the length of an unsupported horizontal plane shaped like a triangle. Therefore, 12 inches was a less rigorous test of droop than 18 inches. Being a real engineer, Harvey recommended that we take the short pizza slices up to John Fisher, Director of the ATLSS labs for the ultimate stress tests. We had to respectfully reject that suggestion due to another Law of Pi: that the structural integrity of pizza varies dramatically with exposure to air.
Making adjustments to our methodology, we munched on with the raw (and baked) data at hand (and on fork). After placing our order, we were served pitchers of diet coke, and regular coke. Laura explained that the darker colored liquid was the diet coke; none of us could see any difference, but we didn't admit it, saving face rather than calories . She then broke the news that the new owner, Bjorn, was MIA for two hours looking for mushrooms. We changed our order to the ham and onions to see whether the pizza recipes stood up to the Markley-memory test of time.
In the end, Bjorn turned up with the mushrooms --- alas canned (but bjorn again). Laura explained that the pizza was upside down to the extent that the sauce was on top and the cheese -- sliced mozzarella, because the wife's family of the original owner owned the local cheese factory . This format was disconcerting for research reviewer; you couldn't make out the toppings. We also tried the white pizza, which Harvey astutely observed, was composed of mozzarella and not ricotta.
Even with an abbreviated slice, the Colonial failed the droop test. We even conducted replication trials to give the benefit of the doubt to the first, superheated slice. Nor, unfortunately, did the Colonial pass the drip test; sophomore reviewer Tara Cunningham Œ01 conjectured that the tomato sauce had thickened to the extent that it contained grease from the mozzarella. Alas, the sauce received the ultimate coup de grace when super-senior Omer Farrukhi ¹98 likened it to ketchup. The white pizza probably saved the day with its powerful garlic flavor -- no adding garlic powder here unless you want some private time to yourself later.
In the end, we gave Colonial 5 slices. The scoring was peculiar because frosh Toni Symia ¹02 gave the lowest single score in our short history of rating, a "3," while her mother, Charlene, a grad student in Education Leadership gave it a hearty "6.5." Toni confessed that her parents had taken her as a child, with her sibs, to the Colonial, and never did like the pizza -- probably a case of freshman rebellion. When Perry "No Grade Inflation Here" gave a rating of "6," Omer nearly fell out of his seat, given his current job as a TA in Perry's Law 11 class.
These ratings didn't stop our crew from eating seven pizzas. Grad student and Centennial teacher Lisa Joseph had to hold up a card with a big "T" (time out) to end the evening. Harrison set the pace with 14 slices. But remember these are 12" pies for $5.95. The size/price quotient, aka the scarfability factor, is not high.
Fifty-four years is a long run for any restaurant, especially a pizza house. The pizza at may be a fond but faded memory, but the comfortable room and pleasant company made for wonderful evening. In other words, good for everyone, once in a while, to eat humble pie.
Reviewed by:
Ron Yoshida, Dean of the College of Education
Perry Zirkel, Iacocca Professor of Education
Harrison Bailey, COE graduate student
Tara Cunningham, '01
Omer Farukhi, '98
Lisa Joseph, COE graduate student
Harvey Stenger, Dean, Engineering and Applied Sciences
Charlene Symia, COE graduate student
Toni Symia, '02
The Colonial Pizza and Spaghetti House, 138 Spring Garden, Easton; 252-3033. Open seven days a week until 11 PM most nights.
This review originally appeared in The Brown and White at Lehigh University, November, 1998.