Lucy Blue

Oh, happy drunk food gods, you have created a masterpiece. The pizza is hot, fresh, and tasty. The atmosphere is casual and inviting. And the staff are on top of their game, well versed in Drunk Speak and Sober Customerese. I have to say, I have been there both intoxicated and sober, and the pizza is still quite good with non alcohol laced taste buds. It is well worth making the trek through what has become the over saturated OTR on a weekend, but just be sure to grab your last slice of the night prior to Japps closing down, or the limited seating will be gone and you’ll have to stand between drunk douche on a cell phone, and Ugg boots with vomit in her hair. The pizza is good, but nothing is worth that price.

good late night pizza for pretty cheap.

If you are a New Yorker or have the misconception the best pies are baked in the big apple, Lucy Blue won’t disappoint and may impress you. Lucy Blue began as a late night pizza window which survived the riot fallout and flourished with gentrification of the OTR neighborhood. For more than decade, I’d ordered a slice of cheese pizza and sprinkled lots of red pepper flakes upon my pie (because I don’t eat beef or pork). I regarded Lucy Blue as pretty good… but it was after 2 in the morning and my opinion was rarely formulated sober. When the original pizza window moved into a full-​service dining experience, I rediscovered something I long considered a staple in OTR. My favorite pizza in Cincinnati will remain Adriaticos whose slogan should read «Better than New York Style, New York Style Pizza.» But, Downtown Lucy Blue is commonly known for the pizza buffet in addition to late night pizza by the slice. Honestly, if you are looking for the «dining» experience, head north on Main to the beautiful OTR Lucy Blue which offers full bar and expanded menu. With nearby attractions like the Riverwalk Banks Park, Suspension Bridge, Carew Tower, CAC and Fountain Square… this may be more convenient… especially for lunch if you want to try variety or pig out on the cheap.

Fast and easy! Lunch buffet is $ 7.50 including a beverage soup and salad. Very convenient.

Why can’t I dine at a pizza joint that offers pizza pies a good as the ones I make at home?
Maybe I’m just being a persnickety snob amongst pizza fans worldwide. Read this correctly, Lucy Blue pizza is good. I repeat Lucy Blue pizza is good. Don’t mind my straightforward honest review. Now that I’ve got that out of the way. Let’s get to the part you’ve all been waiting for *drumroll* PIZZA!
Cheese pizza is really good, crust is in between. Not cracker like, but not too doughy. Similar to New York style. Cheese pizza should at least have over two or more different types of cheese in my opinion, but Lucy Blue was on par with the sauce. It didn’t taste generic.
Veggie pizza, similar to cheese pizza. Add veggies
Salads are very basic, but that’s okay. I usually don’t go to pizza places to have salad. That’s like going to a hole in the wall sports bar and asking them to prepare you filet mignon. It’s not going to go so well because that’s not their speciality. Next time I’m going to ask if they can enhance the salad for me. If you do so as well, do it politely, you’re more likely to achieve what you want if you do so kindly. There ya go! Life tips while Unilocaling.
One thing I will give them credit for is ensuring the salad is fresh, I didn’t feel as if old ingredients were used.
If you are downtown and find yourself looking for a quick bite to eat, stop in this quaint place to fill your belly!

Great place to stop by to have a slice when you’re really hungry and in a hurry. They always have fresh hot cheese and pepperoni pizza. I stopped in prior to a nearby event and friend and I had 2 cheese slices and bottled water and it was $ 6.00 total.

Out of town guest here. Staying downtown for business. Saw positive reviews here and decided to walk over for lunch. I was very pleasantly surprised. For lunch they have an all you can eat pizza buffet, which also comes with a soup or salad and a can of soda for $ 7.50. I had the white bean soup, which was good. The pizza was quite good. I was leery of going to a buffet as the pizza is usually under heat lamps and not high quality. This was the complete opposite. The pizza is continuously coming out of the oven the whole time so my pizza was always fresh and hot. The pizza itself was very good — they have a great crust which is crispy on the outside and chewy inside. My favorite BY FAR was the sausage and onion. It was fabulous. For value, convenience and great pizza, this place can’t be beat!

Possibly the best pizza in Cincinnati. Great crust, sauce, toppings and cheese blend. Every time I walk by I am drawn into their shop for at least one slice. Quick and satisfying.

For 7.50, you can eat all the pizza you want at this location between 12pm-​2pm. The slices are huge compared to Snappy Tomato’s Pizza buffet. I think the quality of the pizza is much better too. The downside is they don’t have as many pizzas to chose. They look like they only keep 4 – 5 different pizzas on the buffet. So the downside is because the pieces are so big and there is not a huge selection, you can’t try as many different flavors of their pizza. It does come with a soup and salad. Not bad at all for a lunch in Downtown.

Not a bad slice after a night of drinking…

Oh Lucy Blue, I wish I were a big fan of you…
I’ve eaten at this location more than once and I still don’t find the pizza to be that good… even when I’m ‘3 sheets to the wind’.
I give it one star for being open late, and one star for the much needed grease to coat my belly.

I like this location mainly for the people watching. You can cozy up to a window seat and watch the late night shenanigans.
This location is great in that it actually has indoor seating, which i appreciate in the winter. And the dead of summer. The location is pretty middle for almost anywhere downtown, and its open super late. The pizza’s decent. Down right amazing when you have afew drinks in you, but still decent for pizza.
At lunch they have a pretty good priced buffet. Pizza, salad, soup, drink all under $ 10. you can’t really go wrong, especially given that you don’t have a lot of late night choices.

The only thing this pizza has going for it is it’s open late and you’ll probably wander by it if you’re trollin’ around downtown.

Approach while drunk.
Lucy Blue is now 2 for 2. A little hot pepper and parmigiana and a single slice of these guys had me sated in seconds.
I’ve had past experiences with other locations and I have not been impressed, so I’m thinking maybe location matters quite a bit for these guys. I also think insobriety plays a large factor. You have to be the right amount of drunk–
–but man, this place totally hit the spot twice for me. I wouldn’t hesitate to hit them up for drunk food the next time I’m downtown.

Oh god.
Many Cincinnati pizza places are ketchup on white bread. I don’t get it. Why does the sauce have no flavor? Why is the cheese such low quality?
Lucy Blue takes this to a new level. This is ketchup on cardboard with burnt low quality cheese. I’m pretty certain it’s cooked on a conveyor belt. Is there anything lower than a conveyor belt?
So why 2 stars? Because, when staggering home from somewhere at 2 am on a Saturday, you can eat here. That counts for a star.

When we first started going to this Lucy Blue location, we fell in love with the pies here. They were large, nearly perfect thin crust pizzas. The crust was crisp, yet chewy, and we really like the oregano kick. Since it was also close to our house, it was our go-​to pizza place.
Then, last year sometime, this location started hiring a bunch of careless kids to run the place. I think the staff in Mt. Lookout said once that they are either family or family friends of the owners.
So anyhow, we started to notice they’d have their friends sitting around at night, or they’d be watching TV and screwing around. Slowly, the pizza quality started to deteriorate. Pie size got smaller (mostly because of poor technique, as it also got thicker), and we started to get burnt and undercooked pies. Eventually, with enough things gone awry, the pies started to be pretty gross. After being regular customers since it opened, we now haven’t been back in about a month.
I saw the sign for the new location on Main Street the other day, and I got excited. However, I hope the owners consider who they let run the place. They have a great pizza concept, but letting just anyone at the oven can really ruin that.

I’ll admit, I’ve been a fan of the Lucy Blue pizza window in Over-​the-​Rhine for years, but never actually stopped into their flagship store until recently. I’m glad I did, because it was awesome.
Ok … to be fair, everything was awesome after coming from a Righteous Room party where the alcohol was free. I might not have been in the most … sober of moods when walking through the doors of Lucy Blue. But dammit, that didn’t stop me from enjoying myself.
First off, round of applause to the staff working here at midnight. They put up with our loud tomfoolery and didn’t grumble or make comments. In fact, they were as nice as nice could be. Thank you, workers of Lucy Blue, you could have been much meaner and we probably would have deserved it.
The shop is cute. Pizza counter as soon as you walk in which makes way to plenty of seating to the right. There are tables and chairs and then very comfortable benches and tables right up against the window. I remember particularly enjoying sitting there … although my memory for everything else is a bit hazy.
They also have a really fantastic Cincinnati mural painted near the ceiling, complete with a flying pig. Love it.
After hours, they don’t make specialty pizzas (I really wanted to try a BLT pizza), just slices of cheese and pepperoni at a few bucks a slice. Again, my mind might not have been in it’s fully upright position, but I remember like the pizza a lot. Not the best slice I’ve ever had, but delicious indeed.
I would come back here again no question … maybe with a little less to drink next time.

Woohoo, another late-​night pizza location! This location is a bit bigger than the OTR window, and you can actually get some indoor seating to eat your pizza if you so desire. Same pizza, which I’ve only ever had late night which probably makes it taste extra good. The line gets a little bit long depending on when you stop by, but they seemed to move pretty quickly.

The newest location of Lucy Blue Pizza and the second one downtown. This is located in what was formerly Gondola Pizza near the lodge bar and across from subway. They are starting to remodel next week which shouldn’t take long and will be a welcome change from gondolas 3^rd hand furniture, zero decoration and scary looking drop ceiling. I think a slice is $ 2.50 at lunch time. I suspect they will do late night action as 7^th street is the new bar district. Same great pizza. Now ever closer to my apartment. They also plan to do fancy salads and some sandwiches at this location… They may or may not do a lunch buffet.