Two ambulances and a police car scream in the distance. Three students in shorts and crop tops stumble down the sidewalk in zigzags. Justin Bieber’s “Sorry” blasts from the bar around the corner. The pungent smell of cheap beer overpowers Insomnia Cookies’ freshly baked aroma.

This is Marshall Street at 1 a.m. on a Saturday.

Five of the 13 restaurants on the street stay open past midnight on the weekend — two are open as late as 4 a.m.

Acropolis Pizza House closes at 2 a.m. on the weekend. Manager Steven Papazides said he wouldn’t consider closing earlier.

“What purpose would it serve?” Papazides said. “We could probably go 24 hours. All you gotta do is add some pancakes.”

Syracuse University had the most late-­night food orders out of the 350 campuses analyzed in a 2013 study by food delivery app GrubHub, according to Kaitlyn Carl, media relations coordinator for GrubHub.

Perhaps coincidental timing, the study was published just a few months before The Princeton Review declared SU the nation’s No. 1 party school in August 2014.

Just as the school’s Princeton Review ranking dropped, so did SU’s late-­night orders. GrubHub’s latest data places SU as the school with the fifth most late­-night orders. About one-third of all GrubHub orders using SU email addresses were placed between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. last year, Carl said.

The popular Marshall Street installment Calios is open from 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. all week. The SU location is busy with deliveries and orders up until about 3:30 a.m. throughout the week, and even later during midterms and finals weeks, said Calios assistant manager Joanie Albro.

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GrubHub found that SU orders more food during finals week than any other school analyzed, Carl said. Orders increase by 30 percent during finals week versus the rest of the year. And despite not participating in last season’s men’s NCAA tournament, SU also ranked No. 1 with the biggest order spike — 31 percent — on March Madness game days, Carl said.

While the weekend is a popular time for campus parties and Carrier Dome events, Albro said she sees drunk students all week. Although she occasionally must ask inebriated students to leave the restaurant for picking fights with paying customers, Albro hasn’t had too many problems with the late-­night crowd.

“They’re not too bad,” she said.

Compared to a spat of gang-­related violence occurring outside the restaurant in 2012, Acropolis Pizza’s drunken student interactions are also mostly harmless.

“Some people want to pay twice,” Papazides said. “Some people think they ordered a half hour ago when it’s only been five minutes. You see all sorts.”

A study published in Obesity Journal found that drinking alcohol increases food consumption, a reaction named “the apéritif effect.” College students have dubbed their inebriated cravings  “drunchies,” the staggering cousin of marijuana-­induced “munchies.”

Urban Dictionary defines the new slang term as “the need to gorge yourself, usually (on) food such as chips, crackers or anything salty” when drunk.

It isn’t a coincidence that the late-­night Marshall Street joints feature foods like pizza, wings, calzones, cookies and loaded sub sandwiches. Moderate alcohol consumption was found to enhance the appeal of salt and fat, according to a Purdue University study. GrubHub’s 2013 research also found pizza, fries and wings to be the top three foods ordered on college campuses.

Elias Preciado, a sophomore public health major at SU, recalled a group of inebriated students gathered outside a restaurant on Marshall Street one night who were inviting passersby to “rave with them.”

“It’s entertaining to watch all the drunk people walk around and yell and try to order food,” Preciado said. “Marshall Street’s a lot of fun.”

As managers on the frontline of the university atmosphere, both Albro and Papazides said they don’t see a problem with the college drinking scene. Albro used to work at a pizza shop in Cortland, New York, that stayed open until 3:30 a.m.

“It’s the same kind of stuff,” Albro said. “I don’t think (Syracuse) is any different than any other schools.”

Editor’s Note: Over the past month, The Daily Orange has collaborated with the Department of Newspaper and Online Journalism at Syracuse University on a series of stories relating to alcohol culture on the SU campus. Multiple stories will appear in The D.O. in the coming days.

Published on April 6, 2016 at 8:45 pm

Contact Naomi: [email protected]