The first thing I noticed about Pita Pit was it had an entirely unattractive name.

While it does get an “A” for alliteration, calling your restaurant a pit can’t be a good marketing ploy, and I’d say it’s about equal to calling your pastry shop Cannoli Cavern or Donut Dungeon. While it technically works, it simultaneously manages to be fairly unsettling and ominous.

Full disclosure, I was definitely “that guy” during this review. I entered Pita Pit exactly 11 minutes before it closed, which my friend in the restaurant industry informed me is kind of like denting someone’s car and then expecting them to cook you food for your troubles. Hey, not everyone’s good with similes. Cut her some slack.

Despite coming in at the ungodly time, the employee working that night was extremely friendly and courteous.

Pita Pit has a layout similar to Subway, where you choose a main food item and are then allowed to choose additional toppings to go along with it. But there are many differences between the two restaurants — the largest being that Pita Pit did not disappoint me at every possible opportunity.

As the name subtly implies, Pita Pit offers Mediterranean pitas in vegetarian, meat and breakfast varieties. It should be noted that one of its breakfast pitas is called “Meat the Day,” and I still can’t decide if the person who came up with that pun should be fired or given a raise.

I ordered the “Chicken Crave” pita and was pleasantly surprised to see the chicken and ham I had just ordered thrown onto a skillet. This was much better than just having the meat dumped onto the bread from a paper tray, a method Subway is quite fond of.

I was presented with the chance to try a few different toppings. And by “a few different toppings” I mean “a roughly never-ending plethora of toppings.”

Including sauces, there are 64 different additions to choose from for your pita. And yes, that does count as never-ending. Thank you for asking.

Faced with such limitless opportunity, my simple mind shut down, and I only ordered five extras. That being said, everything looked extremely fresh and tasty.

Coupled with a medium fountain drink, the meal cost me $9.17. I thought this was a little pricey, but if Subway has the outlandish stones to charge almost $8 for its chicken and bacon ranch melt, I’ll let Pita Pit get away with it.

Having already reached my “that guy” quota for the night, I opted to eat in my car instead of sitting down in the restaurant. Luckily this didn’t put a damper on my eating experience and the pita was quite enjoyable, with every bite being crisp and well balanced.

On a surprising side note, the ancho chipotle sauce paired exceptionally well with Mr. Pibb soda. This is coming from the same guy who thinks peanut butter and eggs also pair exceptionally well, so take it for what it’s worth.

All in all, I give Pita Pit a respectable four out of five stars due to its high quality ingredients, massive selection and moderate pricing. To put it in simile form, Pita Pit is like Subway if you took away all of its terribleness and replaced it with goodness. Hey, I never said I was good with similes either.

Brendan McCabe is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. He can be reached at [email protected]