A late night at Augie's

It’s Thursday night on Marshall Street, about 1:45 a.m. Last call. And when the beer stops flowing, that drunken hunger starts growing.

As the bars on Marshall Street close down for the night, Augie’s Pizza fills up, often with a line out the door. It’s close to the bars, open late and offers cheap pizza, at $1.50 a slice, making it a popular after-party pit stop.

Adriana Maxwell, a SUNY ESF student regularly works the late shift on weekend. People come for the cheap pizza, she said. “Find pizza for that price that tastes good somewhere else... it isn't going to happen.” 

So when the bars close at 2am and students are craving some cheese-covered carbohydrates, many walk (some stumble) over to Augie’s. But Maxwell does not seem to mind the late-night drunken crowd.

“If you want to be drunk and come in here and buy pizza I’m cool with that… That’s sort of the point.”

You have to have a sense of humor to work the late shift, Maxwell agreed. Some customers have invited Maxwell out, she said. And some of the drunken girls apologize to Maxwell for being drunk.

“They’re standing there apologizing and I’m thinking honey, that’s ok, you’re the one that’s going to have the hangover tomorrow. I’m going to be fine in the morning because I was working.”

Some of Augie's earlier customers take a break from the bar and  have some pizza before going back to the bar. Maxwell explains their method: “You go to the bar, you come to Augie’s to get a slice; you go back for round two, you come back and get another slice. I've seen people do that," she said.

But Augie’s is most popular late night. “From midnight to 2:30 it goes bananas. There’s a line out the door until 2:30,” Maxwell said. The crowd is usually well behaved, but they definitely get loud. 

Augie’s is located at 113 Marshall St. in Syracuse, New York.