The Cents Don’t Quite Add Up At Cleveland Pizzeria

I often say that many cities in the Midwest are underrated. Cleveland is not one of them. Until recently, it’d been about 15 years since I last visited. And while there are enough activities and attractions to fill a weekend, I’ve always found a lack of truly noteworthy food in the city. This time, I set my sights on Cent’s Pizza + Goods (5010 Lorain Ave), a spot that felt like it was trying just a bit too hard to be hip. It was as if the owner input the query “Create A Pizzeria That Feels Like It’s In Brooklyn” into ChatGPT and it spit out something just slightly over the top.

What’s Unique? If you couldn’t tell by the name, Cents is more than just a pizza shop. Enter the non-descript brick building and you’ll find yourself in a combination wine and goods store. Bottles are on the left and an assortment of products can be found on the right. Cents calls itself a “life shop.” What is that you ask? A life shop carries “well designed every use products, reading material, and art objects.” Target, this is not.

What To Eat? Okay, we’re here for the pizza, not the hand carved pencils. There is a front seating area (a supersized “Cash Only” sign adorns the walls even though the restaurant does, in fact, accept credit cards) adjacent to a bar. And then a back seating room which leads to an outdoor eating area. We were seated in the backroom, which features a slightly annoying red disco ball (hence the red hue in many of my photos) and a playlist which had me Googling “is five years old too young for my son to start therapy?”

The first item on the menu is Wonderbread (and let’s be honest, it was WONDERFUL). It costs $12 and comes with either cultured butter or chili garlic crisp. For $12, can’t you serve it with both? We couldn’t decide so splurged an extra $3 on chili garlic crisp. The pizzas were more reasonably priced at $16-$22. The “Cheese” pie (tomato, mozz, parm, evoo, fresh basil) was far better than the “Green” pie (“pesto,” garlic, basil, mozz, parm, sweet onion). We asked our waitress why “pesto” was in quotation marks and she explained that it didn’t have pine nuts so it wasn’t actually pesto. When my wife tried the pie she noticed an unfamiliar flavor in the pesto which our waitress later confirmed was cilantro. I found myself wishing the onions were sweeter.

What To Know Before You Go? Is Cents worth a visit? I don’t know. First, you should probably decide if Cleveland is worth a visit. I like the concept of Cents (it’s a pizzeria! but also a wine store!) but I feel like the execution left me disappointed (besides that bread — definitely get the bread). Did I wish the disco ball didn’t give me vertigo? Sure. Would the salad have been less bitter without kale as it’s base? Most definitely. Could the $3 I spent on chili oil have gone towards an overpriced notepad? You bet. And that’s all part of the fun of an evening at Cents.

The Cents Don’t Quite Add Up At Cleveland Pizzeria

I often say that many cities in the Midwest are underrated. Cleveland is not one of them. Until recently, it’d been about 15 years since I last visited. And while there are enough activities and attractions to fill a weekend, I’ve always found a lack of truly noteworthy food in the city. This time, I …