a_natural_beauty

So here I am the second day on vacation with my boyfriend down in Cincinnati, Ohio. Yesterday we went to the natural history museum, Jungle Jim's grocery store, my first white castle experience and swimming at our hotel. Today we went to the art museum and afterwards ate at a restaurant called Cici's Pizza. Some of you may be familiar with this food chain and some of you may have never heard of it. For those of you who have never heard of it, let me fill you in...

I think it was the mid 2000's when I went to my first Cici's with my family while going shopping at the mall in the area we would sometimes go to. It was always a treat. You'd go in and you could choose from usually 6 - 8 choices of pizza, cheesy breadsticks, pasta, different deserts and your typical pop selection. The pizza would range from pepperoni to weird flavors like mac and cheese to buffalo chicken. My favorite being the mac and cheese pizza. So you'd pay one price and like a buffet you could go up and get as much as you would want to eat and drink. The food was always fresh, tasted good and the environment was enjoyable. It became a quick favorite for my family and friends who I knew also loved being there. Then I think it was due to covid (it makes sense if it's the case), but Cici's in our area of north east Ohio closed down. Or maybe they closed before that, I am uncertain. So it was a short lived experience but one I will never forget.

Flash forward to now, 2023 where my boyfriend and I are going to Jungle Jim's (a grocery store honestly that could use it's own journal entry because it's that unusual) and we miss a turn while driving which takes us through this cool tunnel and we randomly see a sign for a Cici's pizza! Since we just ate before this, we had no room in our stomachs but decided to make time today to go.

When we get inside it honestly feels like the food options had not changed. Which is nice, a good selection of different pizza but nothing too complicated to pick from. From what I remember they had the same lineup of delicious pizza. Now the cheesy bread they have has stuffed crust which was amazing. The restaurant itself felt very modern, sort of like how the McDonald restaurants all became more modern a few years back. This one had a big arcade near the back of the building, the one I used to go to didn't have that. And the arcade was pretty cool, if we had more time we may of played some of the games. The music that was playing was from the early to mid 2000's and from where I was sitting I had the pleasure of watching old cartoons directed from Chuck Jones. Some of which I've seen and others I did not.
So here I was eating some of my favorite pizza and desert flavors from one of my old favorite restaurants I never thought I'd have the chance to go to again with music from the time period it was open and old cartoons with a guy who I first met years ago in 2008/2009. It felt like a surreal experience. I really felt like it was a blast from the past. A very nice and pleasant surprise for sure.