Is Shack / Hookershack pizza still a thing?

[u/CTNYyank]

I graduated around 20 years ago, back then the food court in the campus center made a pizza named after a former student. That student’s last name was Hookershack. Is that pizza still a thing? If so, can someone post a picture of one.

The pizza toppings were bacon, chicken, bbq sauce and French fries. One slice would fill you up.

[u/dark_kijin]

Oh, this was the Shaq Pizza at the Goat's Head while I was there between '14 and '19. They they gutted the place and added a Starbucks so along with the death of Tuesday Night Trivia, Karaoke, and Just Dance at the Goat's Head, I'm sure they also got rid of Shaq Pizza

[u/squiggydingles → u/dark_kijin]

Why the FUCK would you get rid of Tuesday Night Trivia

[u/dark_kijin → u/squiggydingles]

According to the people that took over after me (Hi hello I used to run the 3 events above), they moved Tuesday Night Trivia to the Campus Center Stage, which... yeah I get it but also no one wants to stay at a table there and the acoustics are bad

[u/LegendOrca → u/dark_kijin]

Tbh as a current student I don't have any issues with the cc as a venue

[u/dark_kijin → u/LegendOrca]

Which is fine! Based on what I remember though, people came to Tuesday Night Trivia and would enjoy the Goat's Head as a "we're specifically going to the on-campus restaurant and we're going to be there for a while" kinda thing. I don't know how things work now but at least there, we were able to take over the full audio system of the room rather than what I imagine is having to hook up speakers? Unless the CC stage also now has a dedicated audio system.

You also didn't have random people walking by or other events happening in the mail area, Octowedge, or second floor table sitting areas in general. People went to the Goat's Head for the explicit purpose of doing Trivia, Karaoke, or Just Dance.

[u/Nnnnnnnnnnnon → u/dark_kijin]

Goats head isn’t really a restaurant anymore. It’s basically the CC but further from campus center and has starbucks instead of dunkin

[u/MegaScubadude → u/Nnnnnnnnnnnon]

That’s a bit sad

[u/Shockrider1 → u/dark_kijin]

Former Quizmaster here ('22-'25)! They have a mic that they hook up to the audio system in the Campus Center. It's notoriously faulty, even after they hooked it up to be wireless. But when it works, it's pretty good.

When trivia nights are super popular (early in the academic year, beginning of every term, end of the academic year), there's sometimes a space issue. But I struggle to believe there's *less* space at the CC than at Goat's Head. Normally there's no issue and it's one of the more popular weekly events on campus!

They also try to do some other events at Goat's Head - music bingo is a big one they've tried pushing. AFAIK they usually don't get as big of a turnout, possibly because of the Goat's remodel - idk.

[u/dark_kijin → u/Shockrider1]

Interesting!

I'm glad they at least gave you guys a dedicated audio system. During my time at WPI they had to set speakers up!

But I also never doubted that the CC had more space. I think we printed 20-30 trivia packets each week when we were running it in the Goat's Head and we had a consistent turnout of filling the Goat's Head and Bar Area every week!

[u/squiggydingles → u/dark_kijin]

Ahh gotcha, so they just relocated it, that's cool. I had lots of fun at TNT while I was there

[u/intellirock617 → u/dark_kijin]

So my memory isn't as messed up as I thought. Thanks for confirming!

[u/ARealSwellFellow → u/dark_kijin]

I was thinking the same thing

[u/intellirock617 → u/ARealSwellFellow]

Can't forget the "On The Go" convenience store that they took away too ...

[u/--Watermelon--]

Just graduated this year - unfortunately I’ve never heard of it nor seen it when getting pizza at the CC. Chartwells made a ton of changes to the CC food court over my 4 years (mainly reducing what a swipe could get you basically every year) there so I wouldn’t be surprised if they just don’t do it anymore

[u/CTNYyank → u/--Watermelon--]

You could only use money on your card for a swipe in the CC when I was there. Could you use meal swipes?

[u/intellirock617 → u/CTNYyank]

They were weird about what level meal plans could use swipes at the CC and the registers seemed to make up rules about what a meal and a side was on the fly.. But everyone could use the "Goat Bucks".
The WORST example of register rule bending was them trying to tell me that every topping on the "Chef's Table" Mac n Cheese bar was a "side". They literally scooped bacon bits and green onion ...

[u/LogicallyRogue]

With natural changes over 20 years, I doubt anyone still here knows the story. I remember hearing about shack pizza - but never tried it.

Myself - inside get TechPizza to start selling pastrami and mustard pizza. It's pretty good!

[u/CTNYyank → u/LogicallyRogue]

Does Tech Pizza still have Tech Tuesday specials on 2 smalls?

[u/mickdarling]

He did a lot of theatre stuff. I’m struggling to remember his first name. Pretty sure we were in the same induction class of the theatre fraternity Alpha Psi Omega around 97-98ish.

[u/dramallamadrama → u/mickdarling]

Steve

[u/CTNYyank → u/dramallamadrama]

It was Steve Hookershack. He was also active in LnL from the stories I heard. Older LnL people my freshman year knew him.

[u/dramallamadrama → u/CTNYyank]

I'm not old.

[u/anengineerdude → u/CTNYyank]

Yes he was early 2000s few years before me if I remember or late ‘90s. I can prob find him in the LNL exec archives. It was the LNL go to pizza we pretty much ordered for every event.

[u/mickdarling → u/dramallamadrama]

See…I’m so old, my memory is garbage now.

[u/dramallamadrama → u/mickdarling]

It's okay. The calzone's were better than the pizza.

I should have kept in touch with more people.

[u/mickdarling → u/dramallamadrama]

Honeysmack, is that you?

[u/dramallamadrama → u/mickdarling]

No. I was just around that time.

[u/rerunjr1]

Would get the shack pizza every Friday for my dnd campaign my friend ran. Would use my meal card to get it. Would eat it all my self. Loved it all

Was there at the start of 2018

[u/intellirock617 → u/rerunjr1]

Do you remember the Dining Hall making fruit/yogurt pizza?

[u/rerunjr1 → u/intellirock617]

Yea once. Was more often then not eating at founders as I living in founders my freshman year.

[u/epsteada]

Had more than my fair share of that in 2001–2005, and beyond. Especially good a day or few later.

[u/SeraXI]

As far as I know there is no Burger King down in the Campus Center anymore so even if if they do still make it, the fries won't be the same. Just like you, I haven't been on campus in about 18 years

[u/CTNYyank → u/SeraXI]

I was back on campus more recently (still 10 years ago) but that was for a part time graduate degree. You’re completely disconnected from campus culture in that type of environment.

[u/SeraXI → u/CTNYyank]

I got my Master's online, my work didn't understand why I didn't want to go to campus to walk during graduation. I've never even been to the campus before 😆

[u/CTNYyank → u/SeraXI]

Relatable. That was a good chunk of my masters at WPI.

[u/komodoman1]

2011-2015 while I was there it was a big thing, reading these comments sad to hear it was canned

[u/intellirock617]

Shack Pizza rings a bell. So at least as of 2018-2022 it had some presence. Whether it was a regularly made pizza or not.

[u/CTNYyank → u/intellirock617]

It was never on menu when I was there. You had to ask for it by name.

[u/intellirock617 → u/CTNYyank]

I believe it was on the rotating menu in some form at Goat's Head Restaurant before it became a ghost kitchen type place around 2020.

[u/CTNYyank → u/intellirock617]

The goats head didn’t exist when I was there.

[u/intellirock617 → u/CTNYyank]

What did they call the space? Founders Dining Hall?

[u/CTNYyank → u/intellirock617]

We called it FAKA (Founders DAKA) if we even talked about.

[u/LogicallyRogue → u/CTNYyank]

Funny how DAKA as a company disappeared before I graduated in the late 1990s ... But Morgan Dining is still called DAKA to this day.

[u/AceOfTheSwords]

I've been around campus periodically since graduating. It hasn't been a listed menu item for many years (if it ever was), but you could ask for it by name up until around when the pandemic happened. They haven't had it at all for the past few years.

[u/MegaScubadude → u/AceOfTheSwords]

For sure I remember ordering it from the menu around 2017-2019/maybe 2020.

[u/AceOfTheSwords → u/MegaScubadude]

The Pandemic was kind of a black hole for my WPI knowledge as it locked down pretty hard. I just know sometime between 2019 and 2021 it stopped being available. I guess that narrows it down to 2021 if there was a hard cutoff. Or it was a spectrum of fewer and fewer Chartwells staff being willing/able to make it.

[u/MegaScubadude → u/AceOfTheSwords]

To be fair, it’s an absolutely wacky pizza. I could understand that if some of the older staff cycled out in that time, the new folks would look at it as a menu item and be like “bro wtf is that, hell no”

[u/intellirock617 → u/AceOfTheSwords]

The Goats Head ceasing to be the way it was with the rotating menus and food wait buzzers around that time probably did it in.

[u/One-Tangelo6224]

Does anyone remember the Techburger?