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Options for the drunk and hungry

Pizza, gourmet burgers or greasy Mexican food?

By David Conway

Published Feb. 19, 2010

After a long night of partying, nothing seems quite as appealing as a good meal. With a bevy of late-night options available to the inebriated eater, a problem arises: which restaurant to go to? In order to accommodate those who wish to drink to the point they're no longer capable of making a decision on their own, I checked out three restaurants that stay open after hours.

Gumby's Pizza
1205 E. Broadway

When I enter Gumby's at 11 p.m., one patron sits alone with a pizza that's far too large for him, nose buried in a book. This brings up one of the restaurant's shortcomings: The menu offers little for the lone wolf, which also becomes thorny when a group can't decide between pepperoni and pineapple.

I order the clay fusion: half pokey sticks, half pizza. It's an odd sight, particularly because the pizza has been divided into two unwieldy slices. Halfway through my first giant piece, I realize sauce is all but absent. Gumby's Pizza is in an odd place -- it's not bad, yet it's not entirely dissimilar to Domino's.

I'm not the only one with mixed feelings. "Uprise is the best pizza in Columbia," a girl tells her friends before taking another bite of her pie.

When occupancy balloons from five to 25 over the course of 10 minutes at 1 a.m., the staff remains remarkably efficient. An extra-large pizza still gets to its group in 15 minutes.

Even following a fight in the middle of the dining area at 1:30 a.m. and the room's subsequent excitement, a heightened noise level can't be sustained. A hush falls over the still-crowded room at 2 a.m., the lingering presence of the police the only indication anything out-of-the-ordinary had occurred.

Ingredient
304 S. Ninth Street

Best known as "that place with the fancy salads," Ingredient isn't your typical late-night establishment. Offering a stripped down menu of breakfast foods and gourmet burgers for $6.95 until 2:30 a.m., it's a conveniently located alternative to Broadway Diner or Steak 'n Shake.

Due to a poor congruency of vegetarian options on the menu, I end up with a waffle and fries. The food is great, but something feels wrong about eating at a well-lit restaurant with the tagline "formulate satisfaction" after midnight.

For more than an hour, I am the restaurant's only customer. An employee says this is probably a down weekend due to Mardi Gras. Even on a good night, he says, only 15 to 20 people are present at peak hours.

Another group finally shows up at 12:40 a.m. They look forward to their burgers with great zeal and consider Ingredient the best option at this hour.

"El Rancho's food is just like, melted cheese and chips for $8," one girl says before devouring a buffalo chili burger, which is most certainly a more appealing option than my waffle.

El Rancho
1014 E. Broadway

At 1 a.m., there are already 50 people in El Rancho, and it sounds like there are even more. This is the refuge of the sloppy drunk. As soon as I get in line, one girl knocks over a stack of three cups, and a boy seated in the adjacent booth can't stifle giggles, chunks of lettuce hanging from his mouth and all.

At times, it takes more than 25 minutes to get your food.

One patron responds to a long-winded question about whether the party he had just come from was fun enough with, "Man, all I can think about is getting this burrito."

He says it not out of frustration at the wait, but with a remarkable excitement for the meal.

It's loud, it's crowded and it's dirty. This is the El Rancho experience, and despite all evidence suggesting the contrary, it's fantastic. The menu is diverse and the food is good — particularly when the alternative for Mexican food is Taco Bell. But it's the interaction of so many different people, the sense of community that makes El Rancho great "drunk food."