Since it’s not available in Baltimore — Matthew’s Pizza in Highlandtown comes closest — I decided to try my hand at South Shore Bar Pizza at home. (It’s a Massachusetts thing, specific to the South Shore, and an old Friday ritual there.) I had pretty good results.
Keys to an authentic bar pie: Use round pans, 9-inch or 10; no crust, the sauce and cheese are spread right to the edge of the pan; you want to end up with a rim of slightly burned cheese and a crispy bottom.
As for my experiment: A little too much dough in the 9-inch pan pizza with mushrooms. This made the pizza too thick. The 10-inch pan pizza with basil (Margherita) was almost perfect. The dough was not as thick, the bottom crispier.
Please, try this at home.
Making pizza dough is easy; it’s even easier to buy it.
Margherita pizza on the left (with only half the basil I ended up using) and mushroom on the right. The sauce is from a recipe of my mother, the late Rose Popolo Rodricks.
The Margherita is in a 10-inch pan, the mushroom pizza in a 9-inch pan. Shredded mozzarella and provolone mixture on top of both.
The mushroom pizza was fine but for its thickness.
The Margherita (basil) pizza had just the right South Shore Bar Pizza thickness. I baked both at 400 degrees for 7 or 8 minutes, with one minute of light broil at the finish.
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Dan Rodricks 
Am inspired but a recipe or instructions/directions might be helpful. Did you make or buy the dough? Ditto sauce. Yum!
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You know, I’m also a Boston guy transplanted to MD — Rodricks’ show in WYPR was one of my real introductions to the area when we moved here — and the thing I miss that is very, very Massachusetts, is not so much South Shore pizza as Greek pizzerias. I haven’t found any, anywhere in MD and almost anywhere at all outside of Boston (although, we do live quite close to one of the US’ only Brazilian pizzerias here in MD, so, that’s a win). Would love to learn of Greek-style pizza in Maryland.
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