In case you missed it, Father and Son Italian Kitchen was the victorious Pizza Warrior this past Thursday.

As a recurring attendant of Pizza Wars for the past three years, I was really impressed with how Pizza Wars has developed. My freshman year it was held at Niles West in a small space; I remember huddling on the floor with newly made friends as we ate pizza and watched musical performances of fellow students that were barely a few feet away from us. Each slice of pizza I had was hardly distinguishable from another. The following year it was held in the same place, but this time elbow room was essentially nonexistent instead of only slightly tight; bodies packed the room and you often found you either had to push to move about the room or stand still waiting for others around you to make space until succumbing to pushing yourself through the crowd. I later was informed that roughly 500 people had attended that year. That was the year my family was introduced to Father and Son’s infamous dessert pizza, which soon made us loyal costumers seeking their unique treat. I was always a fan of the toffee apple dessert pizza and my mom favored the sweet blueberry and cranberry “very berry” pizza.

This year Pizza Wars was held in the main gym of Niles North and the improvement was immense. Finding a seat became possible instead of a mission. There was plenty of space to meander around the room; so much space in fact that my mother envisioned a potential dance floor within the empty space that existed before our table and attempted to urge me to dance with her.

Unlike in past Pizza Wars, which featured the students’ musical performances on the same level as the attendants, this year musicians played from above in stands that during pep assemblies are filled with freshman. The great music and perhaps its removed location along with a spacious room added to the ambiance of the event and the overall impression that this event had grown in significance.

Somehow even the food seemed more inviting this time around. While I am not sure if the food was necessarily all that different or if there was just better accessibility to the different options, the cuisine I ended up enjoying contained a few exceptions to the only cheese pizza precedent that I experienced before.

There was a stand giving out brownie and cookie pieces as well as a stand handing out bundt cake samples to satisfy a sweet tooth, but since they weren’t in the running as a pizza restaurant, it left Father and Son Italian Kitchen as the only sweet option with their dessert pizza.

A few restaurants this year offered a barbecue chicken pizza, and while the deviation from the cheese pizza norm might have been a good idea at first, the fact that other restaurants did the same hindered their ability to stand out among the rest.

The only two places with unique pizzas was Father and Son, as expected, and Blaze, the Chipotle of pizzerias, where topping options are plentiful and the crust is thin. While my mother enjoyed the Blaze pizza immensely, I was somewhat disappointed with Blaze, my new found favorite pizza place since its recent opening at Westfield Old Orchard. What was the difference between the pizza I ate and the pizza my mother ate? It was simple; the sample my mother got happened to still be warm whereas mine was already cold.

So whether you are especially loyal to Jets, Lou Malnati’s, or Blaze, in my case, the pizzeria sure to gain your vote would either be the pizza that you try while it’s still warm or the pizza that could get away with being room temperature.

Providing a fruity dessert, Father and Son was the most easily forgivable for a cool temperature and thus remained as the winner of the Golden Pizza Cutter Award for 2015.