Unwilling free-food debutante Oath Pizzeria inundated
News of what turned out to be a "closed door event for friends and family" at Oath Pizza was sent to the free-food mailing list Saturday afternoon, causing the event to begin to get "out of hand" after an estimated 50 to 60 MIT students showed up for free pizza unexpectedly.
About 45 minutes after the first email, Oath Pizza employee Tianna Tarquinio asked that the event be removed from the list.
A member publicly poked fun at her misunderstanding that it is possible to remove a post from a mailing list: "On behalf of the free food MIT mailing list, your corporation has been swiftly wiped off the face of the free food list," the member said, and jabbed that "its not pizza. Its garlic bread with ketchup, chilli sauce and or mayonnaise. Not bad though."
Tarquinio did not directly respond to the (perhaps tongue-in-cheek) criticism that Oath has mislabeled its signature dish. She did write in an email to The Tech that "Oath pizzas start with a hand-stretched dough" and proceeded with a bubbly description of how the pizza is made and why it should be considered a quality product.
"We were super excited to see so many students show up and were impressed by how quickly word traveled," she said. "It was also a good pressure test of our staff, so it ended up being awesome!"
She said that a Grand Opening Celebration for the 181 Massachusetts Ave location would feature half-price pizzas and would take place Sept. 7.
The free-food mailing list has approximately 2,800 members, and perennially suffers under a regime of would-be members emailing the list asking to be subscribed. Athena account holders wishing to subscribe should, in fact, visit http://webmoira.mit.edu/ and enroll themselves, or type "blanche free-food -a $USER" at an Athena prompt.