This Massachusetts Pizzeria Is Famous For Its Bar Pies, But That's Not Why I Go

Town Spa Pizza serves a mean South Shore bar pie in Stoughton, Massachusetts (the regional pizza style below Boston). It's served piping hot at a bargain price, with a crispy yet light crust, caramelized edges, and a perfect blend of soft and sharp cheeses. Town Spa is a great place to try this kind of pie — but the pizza is hardly the best thing to come out of the kitchen.

Back in college, I worked shifts in our campus dining hall, and as a result, ate plenty of meals there. By my senior year, I was bringing chicken tenders home at the end of my shift more often, because my roommate had introduced me to a honey mustard sauce that can only be described as magical. It came from Town Spa, which was near his hometown. It was some time before I could get out to Town Spa myself (a period extended by forgetting the name of the place and frantically Googling near-nonsensical search terms like "pizzeria with honey mustard near Bridgewater?").

The house-made sauce contains whole-grain mustard in a sweet, tangy, and creamy base. Sure, there are plenty of good honey mustard recipes out there, but this one somehow tastes different. It even showed up on Reddit's TopSecretRecipes forum, where a fan asked for the recipe to no avail. Others on Facebook speculate it's likely built on food service-grade extra-heavy mayo rather than the common supermarket stuff. If you can get yourself to Stoughton, don't bother trying to make it at home. Exceptional honey mustard is my favorite item at the restaurant, but Town Spa has more going for it than that.

Town Spa is barely 20 miles from Boston's bustling downtown, but feels like a different world. Stepping into the dine-in side of the restaurant (there's a takeout counter on the opposite end), a hostess will greet you in that classic New England gruff-yet-friendly way and lead you to a somewhat spartan booth or table. The dining room probably hasn't changed a bit in decades, save for the addition of multiple flat-screen TVs playing several sports and a never-ending loop of country music videos.

The menu has a familiar selection of pizzas, sandwiches, and dinners — nothing too adventurous, but the restaurant is all the better for it. It has mastered the classics, and the team prides themselves on making most of the menu from scratch, right down to the honey mustard and other sauces, even the barbecue sauce.

Town Spa's specialty is a bar pie topped with pickles, which Eater Boston described this way: "It sounds weird; it is a little weird; it is also delicious." I haven't tried the pickle pizza and am content to keep it that way, but there are enough choices on the toppings list to keep even the pickiest eaters happy. Don't overlook the classic pepperoni. To my taste buds, Town Spa's offering easily beats the much more famous Cape Cod Cafe, a small chain from nearby Brockton.

Diehard Town Spa fans will tell you that dunking slices in a hefty portion of the famous honey mustard is the best way to enjoy its pizza. I have to agree. The sweet, rich sauce pleasantly juxtaposes the salty, savory flavors of a pepperoni pie. Still, the honey mustard is plenty versatile.

My favorite is putting it on one of Town Spa's salad wraps. Order the chicken Caesar or chicken bacon ranch wrap — the latter is made with meaty, crispy bacon that would make even the best diner cooks jealous — minus their included dressing, and ask for a side of honey mustard (if you try to order the honey mustard in place of the Caesar or ranch dressing, you'll be swiftly reminded that it's a sauce, not a dressing).

These days, I don't live close enough to the restaurant to go more than once in a while. That hasn't stopped me from filling the honey mustard gap in my fridge that only Town Spa can satisfy. For about $7, you can take home a bottle of the sauce from the takeout counter, though dining there is part of the experience, too. Eating the mustard at home gives you the unique taste, but not the small-town New England experience of being told by the hostess as you leave, "See ya soon, honey."