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In high school, me and my friend Isaac would often send each other cryptic messages titled "meet me". The messages used various ciphers to disguise the content hidden within. Once solved, it would reveal a time and location for us to meet after class. Isaac and I were fairly close friends until one day, he mysteriously disappeared. There was a big investigation with no results, he was gone without a trace.

10 years later...

There's a knock at my door. I open it to find a pizza box sitting at my feet and no one in sight. Reaching down to pick up the box, I notice the words "Meet Me" written on top and instantly recognize the writing. It was Isaac's. This must be another one of his classic puzzles but I cant seem to figure it out. After many unsuccessful attempts at deciphering the pizza, I decided it would be best to bring it you, the SE puzzler. 

Since my only camera is broken, I made an image of the pizza and posted it below. The toppings in the image are positioned exactly the same as on the pizza itself. Toppings include cheese, pepperoni, black olives and anchovies.


What is the meeting time and location hidden within the pizza?

          Pizza Puzzle

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    $\begingroup$ pizzling.stackexchange.com :-) $\endgroup$
    – Gareth McCaughan ♦
    Dec 6, 2017 at 22:24
  • $\begingroup$ I originally thought the number of items in each segment would correspond to a letter - but the numbers in each segment and indeed the number of individual ingredients in each segment is very similar so must be something else $\endgroup$
    – Beastly Gerbil
    Dec 7, 2017 at 7:39
  • $\begingroup$ I think I got something but just to be sure, is it necessary to know where you live? $\endgroup$
    – Napoleon of Puzzling
    Dec 10, 2017 at 14:26
  • $\begingroup$ @NapoleonofPuzzling where I live is not necessary, just the specific location hidden within the puzzle will do. $\endgroup$
    – AstroMax
    Dec 10, 2017 at 15:30

2 Answers 2

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Some thoughts.....

If you take the numerical values of the letters (A = 1, B = 2)from the number of pepperoni slices per part (from 11 o’clock) you get

Bad Egg Cafe (it’s in London)

Taking @Lolgast’s answer too (please upvote his answer too) we finally get

Meet me in two hours at Bad Egg Cafe

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  • $\begingroup$ You got it! I guess im late for the meeting but hopefully he left a clue behind at the cafe to find him... $\endgroup$
    – AstroMax
    Dec 10, 2017 at 17:19
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    $\begingroup$ @AstroMax Does that mean we're getting a follow-up? :D $\endgroup$
    – Lolgast
    Dec 13, 2017 at 10:26
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    $\begingroup$ @Lolgast indeed, just getting back into town and will be going down to the bad egg cafe asap. $\endgroup$
    – AstroMax
    Dec 13, 2017 at 21:02
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Partial answer:

The time is hidden in the anchovies/black olives. Treating anchovies as A and olives as B for a bacon cipher, looking from the outside, we get
IN TWO HOURS
This requires starting from the lower left slice of pizza (anchovies/olive/3x anchovies) and then going clockwise.

On a side note,

This means we're already too late :(

Thoughts on the second part:

I'm thinking it should have something to do with the number of pepperoni slices, and possibly with the fact that in some parts there are 2 overlapping slices, but I couldn't figure it out yet. For reference, here's the number of pepperoni slices per part, starting from "12 o'clock" and then going clockwise:
1 4 5 7 7 3 1 6 5 2

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  • $\begingroup$ Maybe there's some meaning behind how some of the pepperonis are pairs that are attached to each other? $\endgroup$
    – votbear
    Dec 7, 2017 at 9:17
  • $\begingroup$ @Votbear Yeah, that's I was suspecting as well, just don't have a clue yet on where to go with it :P $\endgroup$
    – Lolgast
    Dec 7, 2017 at 9:18
  • $\begingroup$ Just thinking out loud. There was a bit of a hint for Bacon's cipher with (A)nchovies and (B)lack olives; maybe (P)epperoni and possibly (C)heese is a second hint? As for touching/not touching pepperonis, there are only 5 pairs of touching pepperonis which may make it hard for them to be a cipher at least on their own. $\endgroup$
    – Barker
    Dec 8, 2017 at 19:43

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