Man's 1,400 Mile Trek to Purchase 150 Town Spa Pizzas is Creating Buzz for the Stoughton Restaurant

Between takeout and dine-in orders, Dick Phillips, owner of Stoughton’s , said his restaurant sells about 10,000 pizzas a week. But an order of 150 pies, 1.5 percent of this weekly total, is bringing all sorts of media attention.

Stoughton native David Schuler made headlines when he drove from his home in Jackson, Miss. to Town Spa and back again to pick up an order of 150 pizzas this past weekend. The frozen pizzas were vacuum sealed and cost Schuler about $1,200.

Schuler’s 1,400 mile trek was first reported by the Brockton Enterprise. He split his order evenly between linguica and onion, pepper and onion and plain cheese pizzas.

He’ll share the 150 pizzas with family—he’s one of 12 children, eight of whom live in southern part of the country, according to the Enterprise.

His brother, Richard, still lives in Framingham with his wife Pat, and the two were at Town Spa Monday evening. Richard had helped his brother pack his SUV full of pizzas on Saturday and was back in town to satisfy his own Town Spa hankering.

The Schulers lived on Ash Street while in Stoughton and had a family tradition of ordering Town Spa on Fridays.

After the family moved to Mississippi in the 1970s, they couldn’t find a replacement for their favorite hometown pizza.

Richard Schuler moved back to Massachusetts and eats at Town Spa about once a month, but for his siblings still down south they would typically bring some pizzas back home with them when they visited Stoughton. Richard said it became a challenge among his siblings to see who could bring the most back, with his brothers and sisters bringing only a few back at a time at first.

Then David upped the ante. He brought 40 home; then 100 on his last trip two years ago; and then 150 this time around.

“It’s what you’re brought up with,” Richard Schuler said. “It’s not just the pizza—it’s the memories; spending time with family.”

Phillips said local television stations—Channels 4 (CBS), 5 (ABC), 7 (NBC), Fox 25 and NECN have been at Town Spa throughout the day on Monday preparing stories for their newscasts. The story has also been featured on the home pages of websites like AOL, Phillips said. (AOL is the parent company of Stoughton Patch.)

It’s not out of the ordinary for people to have Town Spa Pizza shipped to their homes far from Stoughton.

Stoughton native Barbara Ilacqua, who has worked at Town Spa for 24 years, said she will send pizzas to her daughter in Colorado and son in New York—but never 150 at a time. Ilacqua said Town Spa is the first place her children will ask to eat when they come home.

Phillips said he will see a couple of shipping requests per week. But on Monday, he said he received 35 shipping orders just between 2 and 3 in the afternoon. He estimates there will be as many as 50-75 shipping requests Monday alone.

He said he received calls on Monday looking for pizzas from as far as Maryland and North Dakota. Phillips is in the process of upgrading his online ordering process to handle the extra volume of shipping requests. He is asking for patience in processing these orders.

Phillips said for these shipping orders Town Spa will make the pizzas fresh—they will cook, chill and then be placed in vacuum-sealed plastic, ready to ship, usually overnight. In David Schuler’s case, the pizza was made fresh this past Friday evening, ready for his in-person pickup this past Saturday.

The restaurant, which has been open 56 years (25 years in the current Washington St. location), owes its success to “family loyalty,” Phillips said.

He said his pizza is so popular because of “the consistency of it; the diligence of the staff; and the secret recipe (special spice in the sauce).”

“It’s amazing,” Phillips said of all the attention his restaurant is getting because of this story. “It’s going around the whole world.”