The best part of going to CiCi's Pizza, 1653 N. Atherton, ain't the before, or the during. It's the after. Amply engorged on the finest pizza, pasta and salad $3.99 (at lunch) can buy, you stumble moony-eyed out into the brisk night air. But not before the good people of Cici's offer one hospitable chime of farewell: "CiCi you later," they exclaim. You bet your sweet tomato sauce you will.

The pizza at CiCi's Pizza is unremarkable. Atop a mound of strangely squishy dough sits a haphazard montage of taste-free cheese, faint dribblings of sauce and whichever topping assortment you've deemed plate-worthy. The pasta is (at least partially, I think) made of the same kind of rubber that sits on the underside of your shoes, and the salad of today may very well be the salad of yesterday. Still, all the slightly-below-Domino's-quality items on the CiCi's spread are yours for the taking, again and again, so who'd complain but a fool? Surely not this intrepid gourmet.

CiCi's isn't into atmosphere, I guess; the neuron-rattling fluorescent lighting makes even the tannest young lady look verily skeletal, although you'll hardly need those neurons for conversation, since you'll be interrupted every five minutes by a CiCi's employee asking to take your plate.

There is a game room, and it's kind of fun to try to imagine just how many pizzas one could make with the giant cans of sauce that line CiCi's walls. Really, though, it's not a glamorous joint, and unless you're really late on the rent, don't take your date there. If eating middling pizza and an unpleasant, almost institutional setting doesn't appeal to you, though, you're missing out on what makes CiCi's Pizza so great. It's the little things. So the pies aren't too hot. So what? If you ask the nice people behind the warming-counter to whip you up one of CiCi's signature combinations, they'll do it with a smile.

That's a lot of autonomy for a discount-priced buffet, but the CiCi's slogan is "we're going for perfect," and truly this pizza-by-request deal is the closest they've come. And they do have dessert pizza, which is one of the finest things man has conceived of since the invention of Muppets. But, as I mentioned, the best part of CiCi's comes at the finale of your meal. No, it's not a lot of fun to drive to the Wal-Mart parking lot and eat dinner in a strip mall. No, the pizza's not much to shout about, although the range of options is impressive.

But if you walk out of CiCi's Pizza like they intend you to -- bloated, a little woozy and with a wallet free of dents -- and you hear them call out "CiCi you later!" as they are apparently contractually obligated to do -- there will only be one thought in your head.

Yes. You will CiCi me later.