The scene: Great American Bites has tried many of the nation’s regional pizza specialties, from New York to New Haven style, Chicago deep dish to Detroit pan, ultra-thin cracker-crust St. Louis pizza to crispy Neapolitan classics. But perhaps the most unusual – and least known – major style is exclusive to Rhode Island. While it is virtually impossible to find outside the Ocean State, "bakery pizza” is ubiquitous within its borders. 

As the name suggests, this style of pizza is found not in pizzerias but in bakeries, including the bakery section of just about every supermarket in the state. But it traditionally comes from small Italian bakeries, which also sell a stunning variety of cakes, cookies, breads and often calzones or other stuffed dough products in the pizza family. Some even sell more traditional pizza, too. But bakery pizza is the constant, and while every place does it slightly differently, the first thing that sets it apart from all other kinds of pizza we’ve tried is that it is almost always served just as you find it – at room temperature.