Shakespeare's Pizza is the most famous restaurant in Columbia and, for many Mizzou alumni, the defining taste of their college years. The pizza is thick-crusted, generously topped, and cooked in a wood-fired oven. The most popular combinations — sausage and mushroom, pepperoni with banana peppers — have barely changed since the 1970s.
There are two locations; the original on South Ninth is the institution. It fills up fast on weekend evenings and during football home games, but the queue moves. It is not a place for a quiet dinner — the room is loud and the tables are communal — but as an experience of Columbia civic life, it is essential.