Providence, RIPizza Strips

Rhode Island Monthly covered the markings on seven bakery boxes, scored each on appearance, crust and sauce, and placed this Johnston counter first. The family has baked since Domenico Palmieri opened in Providence in 1905 and his grandson Domenic moved the business out to Johnston, and Eric Palmieri now decorates character and holiday pies. Order a tray of the strips, which carry nothing but the family sauce recipe on crisp-edged dough.

Dough and red sauce is the whole proposition at this family-run Smith Street bakery, which has fed North Providence for more than thirty years. Rhode Island Monthly describes housemade dough rolled out and topped with a sauce recipe the family has kept for thirty-two years, and notes that a football party here is not a football party without a tray of the slices. Order the strips by the tray.

Michael Manni Jr. runs the two Providence storefronts his father joined as a pan boy in 1965 and owned by 1975, with counter staff who have been on the job for decades. Rhode Island Monthly calls the focaccia-like dough under a secret-recipe tomato sauce and nothing else a true specimen of the Rhode Island strip, with a touch of sweetness in the sauce. Order a tray and eat them at room temperature.

Don DePetrillo started a small bakery at Veazie Street and Branch Avenue in Providence in 1967, built it up to nine storefronts, moved to Florida for a time, then came back and opened this fourth-generation Johnston shop in 2007. Rhode Island Monthly says the strips stay true to form, focaccia-like dough under nothing but the secret family sauce. Order the strips, and add the pizza chips topped with sauce and romano.

A small-town bakery that has served its Maple Avenue neighborhood since 1923, across the bay from Providence in Barrington. Rhode Island Monthly says the pizza is boxed in sheets of twelve to twenty-four individual squares meant to be eaten at room temperature or cold, and describes a sweet, robust sauce under a light sprinkling of Romano cheese, a finish the magazine notes can send some Rhode Islanders into a tizzy. Order a boxed sheet.