Cici's Pizza Buffet in Newark

The zesty veggie, spicy buffalo chicken and mac 'n' cheese pizzas at Cici's. (Credit: Jessica Bratton)

I've been driving past the new Cici's Pizza on Kirkwood Highway for a couple of weeks, marveling at how crowded it looked, no matter what time of day. Then I was bombarded by commercials, singing the praises of all the pizza you can eat for five dollars and change. (Let's be clear. The "change" is 99 cents.)

Every time I saw the restaurant, or the commercials, I wondered if the pizza was any good, and worth my $6.

All that wondering led to me rounding up three hungry, pizza-loving guys in Spark World and heading down to Cici's for a weekday lunch.

The answer? Yeah, it is.

Now, I'm not asserting that this is better than my normal pizza spot, where I go for the thin, cheesy slice. But for the indecisive pizza fiend who just can't decide what topping they want and who would rather have a slice of everything, it's perfect.

The pies at Cici's are designed to appeal to the masses, and that's exactly what they taste like. The sauce is neither too sweet, nor too spicy. The crust is neither thick, nor thin. And with all the choices lined up on their buffet, everyone can find something that they like.

Cici's smartly sizes their slices nice and small, so you can sample lots of different kinds of pizza. Using my pizza estimation scale, I'd say that three slices of Cici's put together would equal one normal-sized slice from a large pie at another pizza place.

Looking around the plates sitting on our table, it looked like the four of us managed to get at least one slice of everything that was up on the buffet.

The zesty veggie pizza was topped with tomatoes, onions, mushrooms and pleasantly crunchy green peppers, along with a sprinkling of parmesan cheese. We had basic pepperoni pizza, and a slice of a sauce-heavy Sicilian with a thick crust and square slices, topped with crumbled sausage.

A pizza with ham and pineapple offered that classic sweet and salty combo, but there's also a pizza with ham sans pineapple for the slightly less adventurous. Another pie skipped the marinara for barbecue sauce, and topped it off with cheddar and mozzarella.

Alfredo sauce made an appearance in place of marinara on at least three pizzas we tried -- one that we thought was a plain white pizza, another with chicken and mushroom and a third with spinach. The alfredo and cheese pizza was a little bit too heavy, but the alfredo and spinach slice was a big hit.

Another popular slice on the table was the buffalo chicken pizza -- good hot sauce flavor, and ranch instead of blue cheese, which I'm in favor of.

The most polarizing pie was the mac and cheese pizza, where the crust was topped with curly noodles, mozzarella and what tasted an awful lot like American cheese. One of us wasn't a huge fan, while another liked it quite a bit. I can imagine that kids would love it, and the trio of teenage girls sitting behind us didn't have anything but the mac and cheese pizza on their table.

If you have any room left, there's also unlimited dessert. There's an apple crumb dessert pizza, some delicious cinnamon rolls and ooey, gooey brownies.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the arcade at the back of the restaurant. Sure, it's geared to kids, but can kids really appreciate a Ms. Pac Man machine like we can?

Tip on how to get the pizza that you want: There weren't any labels out on the buffet identifying what type of pizza it was, but the people behind the buffet were helpful, and answered any questions we had. Check the Web site before you go, and if you don't see a pizza on the buffet that you want, they'll make one up for you.

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