With college students scarfing down pizza faster than the average Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, the pizza market is thriving in Gainesville.
Some go for the cheap, quick and easy service at franchise pizza shops, but others prefer to linger a while and soak in the culture at Gainesville's independent pizzerias.
In the seaweed green, wood-frame building on Northwest 13th Street, locals have been eating pizza on and off for more than half a century. Duane's Original Pizza Palace, first opened in 1953, has been serving people of all dietary needs since it reopened under new management in 2008.
"We're all mad about food," said Duane Olson, owner and operator of the Original Pizza Palace, affectionately known by locals as OPP.
With a mostly organic menu, many of the ingredients for pizzas and breakfast items - including yogurt, jam, granola, cheese and half and half - are produced either locally or on site, and OPP is set to handle most dietary needs, according to Olson.
But food preference isn't the only thing that OPP tries to accommodate. The restaurant also strives to embody the personality of Gainesville.
"It's very homey, but it's Gainesville home-style," manager Ariel Koller-Faloom said. "Earthy, crunchy, indie, hipster, Gainesville home-style."
Even some of the menu items reflect the culture of the town.
"We serve Bageland bagels because it's old-school Gainesville," Olson said. "We get our food from people we like."
Olson also showcases the town's culture by displaying paintings, photos and stained glass from local artists on the walls. Local musicians and singers, such as Anna Marie and Friends and Rashon Medlock, are invited to perform in the restaurant three times a week with music ranging from mandolin to pop.
Regulars Patt and Suzanne Crews have been coming on dates to OPP since the '70s. Suzanne remembers eating there with her parents when she was a kid.
"It was the only place to go back in the day," she said.
It's no surprise that Patt and Suzanne also remember dining down the street at Leonardo's Pizza on University Avenue.
"I'd like to think everyone who grows up in Gainesville has been to Leonardo's," owner Steve Solomon said.
Both of the Crewses remember eating Leonardo's Pizza since the restaurant opened in 1973 and said they loved the Chicago-style pizza, chunky tomatoes and pizza sauce.
"Killer sauce taste, that's what Leo's is all about," Suzanne said.
But Solomon attributes more than just sauce to the steady flow of customers. He said it's the serving size and innovative ingredients that keeps them coming back.
"When we came to Gainesville [from Chicago], people sold pizza that was round and you could only buy the whole thing. We changed all that," Solomon said.
The pizzeria now serves pizza by the slice baked in a brick oven and in different shapes: square, triangle, even heart-shaped on Valentine's Day.
With toppings ranging from Thai chicken and curry to gefilte fish with matzo dough crust, Solomon said he prides himself in keeping the menu interesting.
"Kids grow up today with so much corporate food in their diet," he said. "You wonder if a person who works at Domino's [Pizza] actually eats that crap."
He said his refusal to give up quality of the pizza ingredients and personal interaction for timeliness is key. He uses locally grown foods and selects employees who will personally benefit from working there.
Satchel's Pizza, 800 NE 23rd Ave., also plays to the college and community's fun-loving and progressive overtones, owner and creator Satchel Raye said.
He said he gets a mix of college students and seniors, but mostly local families, which is why business doesn't slow down over summer.
Raye said the playgrounds and novelty toy store, Lightnin' Salvage, behind the restaurant tweaks that childlike sense of fun.
"I think Gainesville's a very liberal type of place," Raye said. "Being a college town, it has a very progressive feel.
It's this philosophy, along with the college mindset, that has students coming through the doors, despite its out-of-the-way location, he said.
"What's a more quintessential college food than pizza?" Raye said.
