Half Time Pizza is not Myles Pizza.

But it is not not Myles Pizza.

Bold, sa­vory, car­bon-rich spicy sauce; not a deep-dish pan-pizza but a well-done heavy crust with a car­toon­ish weight; it is high praise to say Half Time is the new Myles.

For any­one who walked into Myle’s at any­time dur­ing its 39 years an­chor­ing Bowl­ing Green State Univer­sity’s cam­pus, the smell will be in­stan­ta­neously recog­niz­able.

And so will the dense pie with its moun­tain range of cheese bury­ing the “top­pings” (16-inch pep­per­oni $19.50). And the crunchy Cheesy Gar­lic Bread (large $9) with a river of moz­za­rella de­fy­ing all sen­si­bil­ity by run­ning through its cen­ter. And the meat­ball sub (small $7, large $10) with its crack­led edges pressed flat. And all well-done by de­fault.

Half Time’s fla­vor is like a lit­tle time ma­chine to Myles in each bite.

The old Myles Pizza was an ex­tra cheese-stuffed col­lege leg­end that closed in 2016. And there is a new place in its lo­ca­tion at 516 E. Wooster Street called Pizza Pub 516 with a very sim­i­lar, fine pizza. Owner Chip Myles loved the place, but was sim­ply ready to live else­where and moved, with his orig­i­nal name and prod­uct, to Green­ville, S.C., where you can get it to­day if you wish to make the 10-hour drive.

But a man­ager for de­cades at Myles named Abe Val­ley opened Half Time Pizza in a con­verted house next to Ven­tura’s on far west Ban­croft St. in Jan­u­ary of this year — a tough time on the cal­en­dar to open any busi­ness, but this hearty pie al­ready has a hearty fol­low­ing be­cause its leg­end is built into the fab­ric of ex­is­tence in north­west Ohio.

On sev­eral trips, there were

lines for pick­ing up and the late high school/​early col­lege-aged staff hus­tled to barely keep up. And it is a new­ish place, and those em­ploy­ees only have the ex­pe­ri­ence level they have in the world, so ... some­times there is an air of con­fu­sion.

Just like col­lege!

But they are work­ing hard, and seem to be hav­ing fun. Also just like col­lege!

Half Time’s FB page winks at this phe­nom­e­non with a line say­ing, “We wel­come all com­pli­ments and sug­ges­tions, just don’t cuss at us ;)”

In this vein, we found out quite by ac­ci­dent there are glu­ten-free crust op­tions avail­able. The but­tery top­pings and salty car­a­mel­ized cheese ren­der it prac­ti­cally non-ex­is­tent, but it is there. And it was pretty good on a 9-inch Chicken and Pesto ($14.50).

A taco-style pizza called only “Mex­ico” (9-inch, $14.50) also de­lighted if you are look­ing to wan­der off the tra­di­tional path.

The “Big-Timer” is your clas­sic su­preme-style pizza and the 16-inch at $32 felt like it was enough to feed, con­ser­va­tively, 100 peo­ple. It was eas­ily the heavi­est pizza any of the din­ers had ever picked up in a box, and one had long ex­pe­ri­ence in Chi­cago.

Right on cue, a Chi­cago Style Shaved Beef Sub and the Ital­ian Sub each would hold their own in the Second City. And again, the large of each at $10 will over­feed two peo­ple. So will a small Tomato Cheese Bread with ba­con and feta added ($6). Half Time makes its ba­con in house and it made this ap­pe­tizer a dec­a­dent kind of open faced BLT with no “L.”

Just like Half Time Pizza, be­cause it is a “W.”

Con­tact Bill of Fare at

fare@to­le­doblade.com