No one understands the struggle of the phrase “ballin’ on a budget” more than the average college student.

There is good news for UK students. Lexington was recently named the cheapest place in the nation to get a plain slice of pizza.

The website Datafiniti, ranked Lexington number one in the nation for having the cheapest large cheese pizza with a median price of $5.99. In contrast, median prices for other cities reached sky-high prices of up to $15.99.

“Oh man, that’s the best news I have ever heard. I order pizza at least once a week, but I may have to up my pizza expenditure to twice a week now,” sophomore Claudia Kadon said.

The local Papa John’s Pizza franchise and the family-owned Brick Oven Pizzeria were put to the test to see if the results of the study were relatively accurate.

The first business that stepped up to the challenge was Papa John’s. The price of a large one topping pizza came out to be $7.99, or $11.99 after a delivery charge tacked onto the price. However, Papa John’s also offers a year-round student discount, accepts flex and has weekly specials that can vary the prices of all pizzas. 

“The majority of our customer base is students,” Papa John’s manager, Walter Cox said. “We get a heavy amount of dorm deliveries throughout the year. Our business has increased within the last year or so ever since we added the options for students to use their flex accounts here.”

The next local restaurant that was up to the challenge was family-owned Brick Oven Pizzeria. When comparing the median prices to the Datafiniti study, the median price for a large plain pizza at Brick Oven was $11.

“Our location is so far away from campus, so students aren’t really who we target. Our target customers are families with children,” Time Kolenda, owner of Brick Oven Pizzeria, said. “I’m different than the franchise. We use more expensive flours. We use more expensive cheeses and sauce, so our prices are probably a couple bucks more expensive than a franchise, but that is expected when you are making a high quality pizza with the best ingredients.”

Brick Oven offers weekly lunch specials which include a personal sized pizza and a drink for $5, and a kid’s night on Mondays where kids can hand-design their own personal pizza and get a drink for $2. They also offer a rewards program for frequent customers. This can vary the end prices of pizzas.

Even though the results did not entirely match the results of the study from Datafiniti, Lexington was still a cheap place to buy pizza. UK students can get the biggest bang for their buck while simultaneously enjoying a slice of pizza.

That is the true meaning of “ballin’ on a budget.”