oddBar

oddBar names its pizzas like inside jokes. The Haggard channels a cheeseburger — ground beef, American cheese, lettuce, pickles, shallots, sesame, and a house sauce, all stacked on a pie instead of a bun. Pickle Richard leans on pickles, dill, and ranch. The 'Nduja buries spicy cured sausage under pistachios and honey, and Porky Pig just piles on pepperoni, bacon, sausage, and ham. It reads as a pizza bar in the most literal sense: pies built to be argued over, and a long drink list to linger over them. All of it comes from the looser counterpart that the team behind oddBird runs on King Street in downtown St. Catharines.

The pizza splits two ways. Detroit-style slices and squares carry the everyday rhythm, thick and crisp-edged, while a roster of twelve-inch round pies carries the personality. Beyond the Haggard, the Buffalo Garlic Parmesan runs creamy and hot — bechamel, confit garlic, chicken, buffalo garlic sauce, Parmesan, and chives over a garlic-Parmesan crust. The Nashville Hot Wheel answers with pulled chicken, hot sauce, ranch, and pickles. There is a Chicken Bacon Ranch, a Hawaiian, a Mushroom built on bechamel, and a Veggie Deluxe for the table that wants to keep it green. Pepperoni and a plain cheese anchor the board for anyone who would rather not order a punchline. The lineup rotates, so it rewards a regular.

The kitchen does not stop at pizza. Cheesy Garlic Fingers turn the East Coast bar snack Detroit-style — bechamel, mozzarella, cheddar, garlic oil, Parmesan, and a thread of honey — with a jalapeño version for anyone who wants it hotter. Wings and tots cover the bar-food bases, an arugula salad with balsamic, pickled onion, and Parmesan offers a lighter counter, and dips fill out a shareable order. When the savoury is done, the kitchen sends out warm donuts under cinnamon sugar — a small, deliberate last word. It is an easy table to over-order, which is rather the point.

The drink list is what keeps oddBar from reading as a slice counter. Rotating drafts and cans run alongside sours, stouts, and cider, with cocktails, wine, shots, and non-alcoholic options filling in around them, and the beer is built into the meal rather than tacked onto it. The board changes often enough that the right move is to ask what is pouring and steer the table from there — a crisp lager with the Detroit slices, something darker against the Haggard, a sour or a cider to cut the hotter pies. The dining room is set up to match the drinking: industrial, sports-friendly, roomy enough to lose a few hours in.

The looseness traces back to the lineage. oddBird earned a downtown following as one of the harder tables to get in St. Catharines, and oddBar, open since 2018, is the version of that credibility built for a Tuesday — the two share an address, split into a tighter room and a looser one. Local coverage frames the pizza bar as the more family-friendly of the pair, with more space and a longer-hang feel, and the menu follows suit: pizza, wings, tots, and a broad drink list give a mixed table more ways in than a tighter kitchen would.

Used well, oddBar is two restaurants at one address. From four to six on operating days, a Detroit slice and a pint of Great Lakes Blonde Lager run twelve dollars, which makes an early weeknight the cheapest way to read the menu. Later, or with a group, it turns into a full-pie night — wings to start, then a Haggard or a 'Nduja, with the pickup line open for the version you carry home. None of it asks much of a diner beyond showing up hungry. The slices rotate, the named pies keep arriving, and the joke on the menu never quite runs out.