Exeter's Epic Pizza Sub Makes Road Trip Worth It

Pizza is pretty much the closest you'll get to a perfect food. It's simple to make, easy to eat and contains basically all the essential food groups. It's hard to find someone who doesn't enjoy pizza.

Here on the SouthCoast, pizza is a point of pride with the beloved South Shore Bar Pizzas as well as fun combinations like General Tso's pizza or Blooming Onion pizza.

Yet even though your town probably has a handful of local pizza shops to patronize, there's one trend-setting Rhode Island restaurant worth traveling to for a slice.

Or should we call it a sub?

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At Little Country Pizza & BBQ in Exeter, Rhode Island, the pizzas are wrapped around sandwiches and people can't get enough.

They call it the SamZone, "a cheese calzone made with [their] premium pizza dough, baked fresh to order and then stuffed like a sandwich."

You can get a Greek Freak SamZone gyro with feta, cukes and olives inside.

Little Country Pizza & Restaurant via Facebook

A Yo Adrian SamZone with a garden salad inside your calzone.

Little Country Pizza & Restaurant via Facebook

But the most raved about SamZone has to be their Italian Stallion.

Little Country Pizza & Restaurant via Facebook

A fully loaded Italian grinder wrapped in a pepperoni pizza, the Italian Stallion was noted by one Facebook fan as "The most RI thing I've ever seen in my life."

It is also most definitely the thing that has put this Rhode Island eatery on the pizza fanatics' radar.

Google reviewers comment about "regularly making the 35 minute drive...it was that good", call this sandwich "one of the best things I've had to eat" and even saying "this calzone is next level in the pizza game."

So if you pride yourself on sampling all the unique pizza creations in Southern New England, make your plans for a Rhode Island road trip because Little Country's Italian Stallion is definitely worth the drive.

The Best of South Shore Bar Pizza

There's pizza, and then there's South Shore Bar Pizza. Birthed in Brockton (and to this writer, perfected in Randolph – Lynwood Café is the true G.O.A.T.), it must meet certain qualifications to be considered "SSBP," which include: it's a 10-inch pie; it has a thin, cracker-like crust with minimal "flop;" the cheese is a blend that features more cheddar than mozzarella; and bonus points if you take it home between two carboard-type plates wrapped in flat brown paper bag. They also usually come with "laced" or "burnt" edges (terminology depends on where you are ordering), which is when the sauce and cheese are extended all the way to the edge of the pan, creating a crispy, flavorful coating to the crust. We reached out to the hugely popular South Shore Bar Pizza Social Club Facebook group to ask the experts to share the best of the best (in no particular order).

Gallery Credit: Tim Weisberg

25 of the Best Pizza Spots on the SouthCoast

Not all pizza is created equal, but the SouthCoast has plenty of options for a high-quality slice. Choose from any of these 25 spots to fully take advantage of National Pizza Day.

Gallery Credit: Maddie Levine