Pinnacle

PINNACLE IS NOW CLOSED. UNI CAFE TOOK ITS PLACE AND IS PRETTY MUCH THE SAME BUT THE NEW OWNERS ARE GROSS. Also the new ordering system and prices are terrible.

This is my favorite deli in Midtown. They use quality Boarshead meat and give you A LOT more meat than any other deli around. They’re quick. They are also cheaper than any other deli around for what you’re getting. The bread is fresh the lettuse is finely chopped. What more do you want?

A deli/​pizza place/​ice cream shop open really late, sometimes 24 hours.
The pizza is good, probably the best in the area (Famiglia and Koronet are awful). It just looks as if the pies do sit out for a while. The soups look gross with that I havent been touched in a week skin. The deli is good. Never had a problem with the sandwiches.
They actually have really good coffee. If you hate starbucks (I do), it’s a great alternative.

I’m going to keep this short because this place really doesn’t deserve any more of my mental energy than it’s already eaten up.
I went in today and ordered a broccoli and cheddar omelet platter and mentioned to the cook that a lot of times, there’s almost no cheese in it, so could he please make sure it was cheesy. I know that sounds a little high-​maintenance, but if I wanted just broccoli and eggs, I’d order it that way. I proceeded to the counter and ordered my iced coffee with milk and Splenda. Let me make something clear: I have stomach problems of the order that I will never, ever drink hot coffee. It makes me violently sick. I haven’t ordered hot coffee in at least 6 years. So when I saw the coffee guy making a hot coffee, I said, «Ooh! No, iced coffee. Not hot.» Both the coffee guy and register chick said I said hot, which is like, whatever. I don’t have a court reporter here to read back to you a transcript and you think I said one thing and I think I said another and we’re not going to resolve it by arguing. The register girl told me I’d now have to pay an extra dollar for the hot coffee they wasted. Not my fault… but honestly, I didn’t want to get into it over a dollar. But I didn’t have any cash and the register girl insisted on running my card through for another dollar. If they want to pay the service fee on that, god bless. No skin off my nose. But the thing is, the guy just dumped my hot coffee over ice. So, er, I don’t see how the extra dollar was necessary. And if you’ve ever had hot coffee poured over ice, I think you can agree it’s less than delicious. Or worth an extra dollar.
Then my omelette/​platter comes up and the register girl says to me «Did you ask for extra cheese???» All those question marks were there, I assure you. And I said, «Well, sort of. I mean, I did ask him to make it cheesy. Is that extra? I’m sorry.» So she rolls her eyes and says, «That’s 75 cents more.» And I say «I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to order extra cheese, exactly. Can I give you the 75 cents on Monday? I hate for you to run my card through again.» She says, «Gimme your card.» I do. She says, «Just say what you order. It’s ridiculous how much I’ve had to fix for you.»
So that was special. Look, I know I wasn’t the ideal customer and that I made a mistake in the confusion over «extra cheese» versus «please include the cheese I ordered.» But berating me over 75 cents is really out of line. I won’t be back.
So much for keeping this short.

I really like the people that work here. For them, I will visit again.
I had the ziti pasta, which was really really good. During a previous visit, I had the chicken parm sandwich and it was so-​so. The super convenient location for Columbia students, along with the variety of food to pick from, makes it a great choice for lunch between classes.

Hit up their sidewalk-​side beverage & dessert café on a spring day. Pretty quickly– and well-​devised hawaiian smoothie and at the price you’d expect. Wouldn’t return, but wouldn’t advise against.

My finals week was quite the pain. It was preceded by a two-​week trip out of the country and thus, two weeks missed of school. So, I basically – who am I kidding, I was dangerously near literally living in the Columbia library system. Thus, it was near a daily occurence that I’d be heading to Butler between midnight and 3AM.
Enter in Pinnacle. Often the only reason I’d had something to eat in 20 hours. Thank you white pizza and whatever that yum pizza with pepperoni, green peppers and mushrooms was. Not exactly super cheap slices (~$ 3 or more/​slice), but good nonetheless and across the street from the library. With those requirements at 3AM, you don’t get to be so picky.

I have stopped by frequently on my way to or from class. A slice to go is the perfect size for a meal. The staff is friendly and there are always a dozen or so pies to choose from. My fav. is the ziti slice. While the sauce is not garlicky enough for my taste, the slice is soooo filling and the cheese is more than adequate! The meat lover’s slice is also a decadent treat.
I have yet to try the soups, pasta, or sandwiches since they are not as easy to tote along for my walk.
The downside? I do have to add garlic to the top of each slice. The pepperoni is way greasy. The garlic rolls are a bit bland as well.

I’m going to give this place high marks because I’ve already been here several times to study. They have a great area upstairs that is perfect (though a bit dim) for studying. I’ve found Pinnacle to be a warm and welcoming place from the cold outdoors. Also, the food’s not bad. I’ve had the pizza with chicken and broccoli. It was a bit bland. The chicken pot pie soup was better. The cheese pizza is pretty delicious. For the cheap price of the food and the fact that you get to sit in a heated, spacious area earns this place high marks. Also, when you’re in the midst of midterms and finals, this is a great place to get some frozen yogurt or healthy juice drinks.
Yay, I’m a fan!!!

Ah, I remember the good old days of being a freshmen in Morningside Heights… which essentially means that the only eating options I seemed to have presented myself with was (a) Pinnacle or (b) M2M. M2M is by far better in most respects (sushi, sandwiches, cute asian koala snacks), but Pinnacle does have a big advantage: it’s open past midnight (until around 3 Am). This makes it very convenient for all the drunken stumblers out there who can’t seem to walk their way to Amsterdam for HamDel.
Pinnacle will come to use when…
(1) You feel like overindulging on carbs and sending yourself into diabetic shock: PIZZA… With Baked Ziti on it.
(2) You want a fruit shake.
(3) You feel like peering over people on Broadway while sitting in their shady 2^nd floor seating (M2M has this as well).
(4) You want a nice, cheap, toasted bagel.
(5) You want 4 really stale garlic knots for $ 1.
(6) When your roommate makes you get chicken soup for her sore throat.
I’ve rarely returned back to Pinnacle, but I know it will always be there for me and in my heart (too much?)

I think their pizza and smoothies are tasty. I love the proximity to Columbia.
Sadly, one girl behind the counter has a terrible attitude and it always lessens the experience to see her interactions with the customers. (i.e., accusing a girl of ‘stealing’ someone else’s pizza slice — all slices are served in paper bags, how would she know?)

An average deli, but a little bigger and with a little more selection, including pizza (i’ve never had their pizza, and would be skeptical about it, just by looking, I dunno why…)
But they do make a mean triple-​decker turkey club sandwich!
Downside: it usually feels as hot as a rocket engine inside this place.

As pizza places go, there are better. I’ve lived on the UWS for about a year now, but I’ve got three additional years of commuter experience to give me a good breadth of understanding when it comes to sauce, dough and cheese in the Columbia area.
In short, Pinnacle’s pizza tries too hard. Notably, I recently had their answer to meat lover’s pizza and was ultimately disappointed. It’s not that there’s too much meat, it’s more that the layer of slightly burned, gritty sausage makes even the best bacon, ham and pepperoni seem less delicious. It might have been bad luck, but then I tried a supreme slice with chicken and it was terrible. The chicken was dry and the sauce apparently had somewhere else to be because it never showed up to the party. It’s not that there are too many toppings, either; rather, that at least one topping on the stacked pizzas seems to ruin the pot. Stick to a plain slice.
There is a redeeming feature, though, in that the place is open late, and that their sandwiches are much better than the pie. Their drinks are usually pretty cold too, which is absolute heaven for a guy who likes Pepsi from the can.
There’s also a swelteringly hot upper level that, in the dead of winter in a blessing, but on warmer days just before spring, it can be torture.

When I was a student, I looked down on Pinnacle… until my senior year, when I discovered their frozen yogurt. The Colombo frozen yogurt they serve is vastly superior to any of the other nearby options (Tasti, Pinkberry), both in taste and price. Ghiradelli chocolate frozen yogurt? Amazing.
I wouldn’t go for anything else, though. It’s not a particularly clean place and the food just looks unappetizing. I’ve had pizza a few times and it wasn’t memorable. And it always seems to be closed during late night cravings.

If you want a hot SOUP at 3 a.m. around Columbia University, you’d better come here. Their soup are wonderful in this sense.
But I come here for their BUBBLE TEA! YUMMY! (Although a little bit pricey, may I say?)

I patronize Pinnacle because it’s summer, I have classes a few footfalls away, and even the noxious venues on campus are not open when I need them. I can’t even give this place kudos for its long opening hours, since they close early in the summer, right after most evening classes let out. I only pick up the occasional slice and coffee there. Garlic knots are more like conjoined Southern biscuits slathered with garlic butter, without any of the requisite Southern charm.

So gross So gross So gross So gross So gross So gross So gross So gross So gross So gross So gross So gross So gross So gross So gross !
Maybe it’s just me, but whenever I walked into this place as an undergrad, it smelled like CLEANER. Does that seem appetizing for people?
Plus I was there for the black-​out of summer 2003 and they were giving away their pizzas and ice cream for free. OK, doesn’t sound so bad when you’re a broke college kid, but when you mix humidity and the more pungent smell of cleaner into the equation, you want to barf.
The only thing I’d buy from this place are their bottled drinks… perhaps.

Anything open 24 hours gets a minimal 2.5 stars in my book. The pizza here is so-​so. I actually like Koronet a lot better, which isn’t saying much at all.
But they have a pretty awesome breakfast/​lunch menu with niiiiice sandwiches and bagels and spreads and a cooler with all the soda and juice and vit water and pre-​made salads and wraps you could want.
Gourmet it is not, but it’s perfect for the area — a place for drunken undergrads to cavort and vomit at 5am on Saturday morning. And also a quick place to grab a decent lunch for us (sometimes) better behaved grad students.

«Caroline P.
2 star rating10/​01/​2007
Oh, please. If this place weren’t across the street from Columbia, no one would go.»
Caroline, there are no words more fitting for Pinnacle.
Stale bagels, bad-​cheese greasy pizza, coffee brewed from ground COAL, mucus-​resembling oatmeal and the grand finale… a bathroom that reeks of vomit whose door (purposely?) doesn’t close.
«Not even bums eat here»:
Usually there’s some commotion going on either amongst Columbia kids or the employees, or both. So the small scuffle occuring in front of the potato chips shelf/​ATM machine didn’t alarm me at first, and I proceeded to grab a soda from the fridge.
Heading towards the cashier, I notice that the commotion is coming from an argument between a homeless man and an employee.
The employee is BEHIND the counter attempting to out-​do the homeless man’s masculinity by standing on his tip-​toes with chin up, demonstrating courage of course (behind counter), and skill at war with his impressive aim as he threw chicken pieces (from behind the counter) at the homeless man.
The homeless man is just standing there, asking for food, as one might expect. So he left, saving himself from Pinnacle’s 8-​day-​old bagels, unbeknownst to him. Don’t know why he would choose Pinnacle anyway.
He’s not going back, and neither am I.

An establishment! This is like the dining hall Columbia wishes it could have, maybe. (C’mon, why even both with John Jay or Uris when there’s Pinnacle?) It looks a bit ghetto inside but their sandwich wraps are very, very good. The pizza and calzones are decent — I say go for a sandwich every time. From reading posts by other users, it seems YMMV.
It’s basic, inoffensive food for the broke college student. Gourmet it ain’t, but at least you get what you pay for!