Under-the-Radar Restaurants With Amazing Homemade Pie
Pie doesn't steal the spotlight. It will never be the showstopping finale of a national baking show, it won't be a significant part of a couple's wedding budget, and it doesn't often show up in social media photos of trips to exotic places. It's something you throw in the oven when you have a bit too much produce left over, or something to eat at a diner when the people you came with don't want to leave just yet. That's why the best pies often aren't in well-known places featured in tourist guides, but in under-the-radar establishments, sometimes off the beaten track.
To help guide you to some of the best pies across America, we consulted travel sites, food sites, and social media, and graded the offerings not only on the strength of reviews but on their originality and popularity. The list is in no particular order — not the tidiest way to bake up something like this, but pie making is seldom a tidy affair.
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Tigard, Oregon
In the southern suburbs of Portland, this de facto diner has been open 24 hours serving all-day breakfast, comfort food, and pie since 1979. The jewel of owners Trish and Mark Banning's menu is the decadent peanut butter pie, featuring a graham-cracker crust, chocolate fudge topping, and whipped cream.
West Palm Beach, Florida
An institution since 1950, Howley's got its terrazzo floors and tin ceiling redone in 2004 and was restored to its former red-seats-and-neon glory. The massive menu features all-day breakfast, crab hash, biscuits and gravy, and smoothies, but also gives customers a choice of "bananabanana" cream pie, berry pie, apple pie, Key lime pie, and peanut butter chocolate pie.
Whitefish, Montana
It's fine to stop into this old Masonic temple during ski season and help yourself to some farm-to-market pork or beef. But with a pie menu nearly two dozen pies deep — and baked in-house — we recommend waiting until around Labor Day to help yourself to some fresh Loula's huckleberry.
Hawthorne, Florida
This restaurant and cocktail lounge has a swampfront view from its screened porch and a Floridian menu of snapping gator, conch fritters, frog's legs, and grouper. More importantly, this 65-year old mainstay has Key lime pie, pecan pie, buttermilk pie, and incredibly tart sour orange pie in a graham cracker crust.
Memphis, Tennessee
Perched along the Mississippi and in business for more than 40 years, Paulette's has gotten fancy over time, serving shrimp and grits and low country crab cakes, as well as Gulf redfish with grilled lamb chops and salmon. There are just two pies on the menu — the Key lime with fresh lime juice is worth having, but the one you want is the Kahlua-mocha parfait served in a pecan-and-coconut crust. Just call it the "K-pie."
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Los Angeles
It was tough not to put a dozen different L.A. diners and coffee shops on this list, but Echo Park's Brite Spot, in all its orange-and-aqua midcentury modern glory, has been a great pick for pie since 1949. Meatloaf, patty melts, burgers, chicken and waffles, and two eggs any style rule the day, but a giant pie case featuring a Salted Honey slab with caramelized custard and sea salt are due to return with the end of a Covid spike.
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Salt Lake City
Sugar is this town's greatest vice. The Dodo dedicates so much of its energy to its list of towering cream pies — including Toll House pie, Key lime pie, banana cream cheese pie, peanut butter cream cheese pie, and chocolate almond mousse pie — that dessert takes first billing, with its casual dining dinner options (pulled-pork quesadilla, Cajun chicken Alfredo, wings) waiting in the wings.
Stockholm, Wisconsin
There's a general store here where you can buy tchotchkes on your way to somewhere else, but most of the menu consists of pie. Want lunch? There's chicken pot pie, apple sausage quiche, and a veggie frittata. Want sweet pies? There are nearly two dozen to choose from, but the caramel apple crunch pie, with hand-peeled and sliced apples, pecans, cinnamon, nutmeg, and caramel sauce is the strongest contender.
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Hartland, Vermont
Just about any little ski resort town in Vermont has a pie shop that's worth a stop. But on Route 5 just south of White River Junction near the New Hampshire border, this little diner has been tempting visitors with fresh-baked cherry pie and peach-blackberry pie. With maple cream and chocolate cream as other options, there's no reason to wait for ski season.
Boulder City, Nevada
Oh, the kitsch. Just West of Hoover Dam and Lake Mead and just off of Route 93, this neon-heavy, gingham-tablecloth diner operating for more than 30 years will serve blended piña coladas and strawberry daiquiris, big three-egg omelettes, and avocado BLTs — with pie a la mode and in-season fruit pies as a treat.
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Providence, Rhode Island
This bakery looks every bit its 80-plus years, but that's just a compliment to all the neon and chrome. Opened in 1928, the bakery has a full lunch menu that includes sandwiches, wraps, pizzas, and quiches. But an extensive pie menu features more than a dozen pies, including apple, blueberry, coconut custard, minced meat, and banana cream pie that come in 8-, 9-, and 10-inch sizes.
Dubois, Wyoming
For more than 25 years, the Cowboy Cafe has served up breakfasts, lunches, and dinners including country-fried steak, buffalo and elk sausage, nacho burgers, and pork shank. But it's a stacked pie menu including Kahlua chocolate pecan, Irish cream pecan, peach caramel crunch, blueberry almond crunch, peach, and apple that's helped keep customers long after their meal is finished.
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Lynden, Washington
If you leave Lynden via 539 North, the next town you hit will be Aldergrove … in Canada. This town and its roughly century-old bakery might be considered the middle of nowhere. But if you find yourself here with more than 16 types of pie — including a particularly decadent chocolate caramel cream, "nowhere" isn't such a bad place to be.
Lawrence, Kansas
Pie is central to owner Meg Heriford's business, and a daily selection of rotating pies keeps customers guessing. A chicken-fried steak or buttermilk fried chicken sandwich could be followed with a serving of Dirty Chai Latte, Mexican Chocolate, Ancho Cherry, banana cream, or strawberry rhubarb pie.
Hanover, New Hampshire
This Dartmouth staple has a menu replete with acai bowls, free-range eggs, and oat-and-grain options, and though it's a big breakfast mainstay, its fame is shared with "mile-high apple pie," multiberry pie, and chocolate cream pie. You get 40 years of business by adapting, but not by forgetting everything you know.
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Nashville, Tennessee
The most dangerous element of a "meat and three" is a dessert menu that could make it a meat and four, or even five. Once you've found Dandgure's and its iconic mural and sat down for some fried catfish, smothered baked chicken, or fried pork chops (along with mac and cheese, turnip greens, and spiced apples), see if you can save room for chess pie. Should that not be available, give the fudge pie or pecan pie a go.
Ray, North Dakota
This is really more of a leisure destination than a foodie heaven, but folks who've made it to this North Dakota fishing, boating, hunting, and adventuring resort — temporarily closed while eying a sale but potentially reopening May 1 — have surprises: The first is pan-fried walleye made with that day's catch. The second is pie made with homemade juneberry, which is Canada's magenta answer to the blueberry. If Lund's reopens this spring, an owner says to expect the pie to be there.
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Shreveport, Louisiana
This more-than-60-year-old diner will give you burgers, pancakes, deep-fried hash browns, and ham if you want it. But its ice-box pies — strawberry, coconut, butterscotch, banana, and chocolate (peach is seasonal) — are its calling card. What's that white dome on top of it, you ask? Just a few inches of homemade whipped cream.
Kansas City, Missouri
For 75 years, it's been burgers, fries, and a bustling downtown that have kept people coming to this 24/7 mainstay. Daily pie offerings don't hurt. The lemon meringue and blueberry are just fine, but the strawberry pie with whole strawberries outclasses them all.
Milwaukee
Valeri Lucks' Honeypie has been around for a decade, luring folks in with all-day breakfast, soups, sandwiches, and even chicken-and-biscuit pie. But there's a reason the pie is the cafe's namesake, and there are some three dozen to pick from. If you have only one, go for the black-bottomed banana custard pie, which layers chocolate and banana custards over a graham-cracker crust.
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Custer, South Dakota
It's purple, it's just outside of Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse monument, it's one of our favorite spots for cheap eats, and it's open only May through September. That doesn't leave much time for tasting, so if you're in a pinch, forget the paninis and chicken pot pie and skip right to the raspberry rhubarb jalapeño or bumbleberry pies.
Fort Worth, Texas
Yep, it's just a straight-up diner that's been serving since 1926 (closed for renovations that started in October to reopen in early 2022) and will still give you two eggs any style, bottomless coffee, and a triple-decker club sandwich. It also makes incredible seasonal pies including apple, cherry, peach, pecan and coconut chocolate meringue.
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Jackson, Mississippi
Drive-ins don't typically serve $19 lump crab cake or $40 wagyu hanger steak. But this is what happens when you "chef up" a place in the Fondren arts district near the University of Mississippi Medical Center and Jackson State University. If you find yourself in this gilded hole in the wall, go directly to the fried pie of the day.
Otis, Oregon
Tucked along the Salmon River Highway just outside the Oregon Coast resort town of Lincoln City — and rebuilding after a fire, as well as opening a second location — the Otis Cafe sits nestled in the woods just waiting to serve up omelets, apple-baked ham sandwiches, chicken-fried pork cutlets, and sausage gravy and biscuits. If you have room after the cheddar hash browns (complete with green onions and Tillamook white cheddar cheese), call over a slice of apple, marionberry, strawberry-rhubarb, or peach and walnut pies.
Wells River, Vermont
Hearing of a "P&H Truck Stop" without context may not lead you to believe there's anything special about this gas station and mini mart. And its menu doesn't make any especially fervent claims about its fresh-baked breads (including maple walnut and cinnamon raisin) or fresh pies (including a mountainous lemon meringue). But this little diner bakery is a destination all its own.
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Haleiwa, Hawaii
On Oahu's North Shore in prime surf country, Ted's — formerly a gas station and a grocery store — has been dishing out pies and other pastry since 1987. Along the way, trying to use up some haupia (a coconut pudding) left over from making cake, the crew scooped some into a crust, layered on chocolate cream and topped it with whipped cream, inventing chocolate haupia cream pie. While you can get plate lunches, breakfast, and pastries here, that pie is the best reason to drag yourself out of Waimea Bay and into the bakery.
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Reno, Nevada
Don't let them tell you no good can come from stopping in a Reno strip mall. This little breakfast and lunch spot has a surprisingly deep menu of bakery offerings, including a number of pies. The apple pie laden with apple slices and served with cinnamon sauce is a standout.
Charleston, South Carolina
It isn't quite the no-frill grocer it was in the 1920s, but the stylized aesthetic of this restaurant, bar, grocery store and rooftop garden helps preserve that feel — and the place offers pie for breakfast Saturday and Sunday mornings. The mixed berry and coconut cream pies are the temptation.
Santa Fe, New Mexico
The mix of tamales, pupusas, breakfast chile rellenos, burritos, enchiladas, Cubanos, burgers, and stews are this place's biggest draw, without a doubt. But homemade, gluten-free pie including blueberry, maple pecan, and strawberry rhubarb should be right behind.
Monroe, Louisiana
Since 1985, this shop has made po' boys, quiche lorraine, chili, bisque, and a bunch of other offerings. But when you offer peach, pecan, fudge, strawberry, apple, and chocolate cream pie, not to mention a banana caramel pie with handmade crust, housemade caramel, homemade whipped cream, bananas, and crushed Heath bar topping, it doesn't seem right to emphasize anything else.
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Columbia, Missouri
When it comes to Renata Alanovic, Croatia's loss is Columbia's gain. Her quiches, tarts, and savory pies (chicken pot pie and beef and mushroom pie) aren't to be ignored, but we're here for her apple, Key lime, peach, and cherry pies and galettes.
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Lancaster, Pennsylvania
This market has been running since 1730 and features several stands of folks in the local farming and Amish communities selling baked goods. A local favorite can always be found there among the stands: shoofly pie. It's basically molasses, sugar, and butter, but it does a lot with a little.
Seattle
A family sweet potato pie recipe inspired the Hammond family to open this Madison Valley soul food and pie spot. There's chicken and waffles, oxtail dinners, catfish and grits, chicken gravy, red beans and rice, and, yes, sweet potato, apple, and mixed berry pies.
Machias, Maine
For more than 60 years, Helen's has been serving local clams, haddock, and lobster, while supporting local farmers and shellfishers. It's also been making a stable of pies including chocolate, coconut, banana, graham cracker, apple, baked blueberry, strawberry, lemon meringue, pecan, and Toll House. Our advice: Go for a seasonal pie such as rhubarb, raspberry cream, blueberry cream, or pumpkin.
Key West, Florida
Okay, the official state pie is the Key lime at Joe's Stone Crab in Miami. But Joe's hasn't done what Kermit Carpenter has: taken the tangy Key lime pie and its perfect graham cracker crust to the next level. Around that pie, he's built an empire that includes a Key lime barbecue rub, salsa, ice cream, bath and body products, and even chocolate-dipped Key lime pie slices on sticks.
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Wisdom, Montana
This isn't so much a hole in the wall as it is a hole in the universe, a remote outpost of 100 people where it's winter for way too much of the year. Wait until summer to go for the buttermilk pie, a super-sweet concoction topped with local huckleberry.
Los Angeles
The nihilists had lingonberry pancakes here after mailing a severed toe in "The Big Lebowski." Jake Gyllenhaal's creepy "Nightcrawler" stopped here too. Dinah's star turns, buckets of fried chicken, and oven-baked pancakes get all the press, but the pie makes it a great last stop on Sepulveda before heading to LAX. Pecan, pumpkin, cherry, and chocolate cream pies are all fine choices, but the fresh apple pie a la mode is the must-have classic.
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Winchester, Indiana
Wick's has been cranking out pies since 1944, but the wholesale operation and its online presence don't stack up to the experience of eating these pies fresh from the source. About an hour and a half west of Indianapolis, Mrs. Wick's Bakery and Cafe, serves up beer-battered haddock, Alley Oop cheeseburgers on Texas toast, chopped steak, and, oh yes, three dozen types of pie in a display window. There are two dozen fruit pies alone (from apple to strawberry-rhubarb) and nearly 10 cream pies (from banana to pineapple), but you're going to want the pie that started it all: The brulee-flavored sugar cream pie.
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Memphis, Tennessee
The Prozac cupcakes, vegan cookies, and coconut macaroons make Muddy's all-inclusive, but don't neglect the pies. The Chocolate Dream cream pie and Cocoa Chanel chess pies are rich, and the Shady Wake is decadent even by pecan pie standards. The Nancy's Boy hits all the right notes by cutting a chess pie with a healthy dose of coconut.
Marble Falls, Texas
It closes early on Thanksgiving and shuts from Christmas Eve through New Year's Day ... otherwise, it's open daily, and there's just so much to love about this spot open since 1929. Smoked chicken, chicken and dumplings, homemade enchiladas, and meat and three are staples, but the cafe's many pies get their own menu. Choices include chocolate, coconut, lemon, banana, German chocolate, fudge, peanut butter, apple, cherry, pecan, and no sugar-added apple, but save your energy for the lemon meringue, with a fluffy meringue topping that looks absolutely volcanic as it towers several inches above the crust.
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Round Top, Texas
Famous enough to be delivered around the country by Goldbelly, but still obscure enough to tuck itself away in a town of 85 people that's best known for its antique fairs, Royer's Pie Haven is a big presence in a small town. Owner Tara Royer Steele opened shop in 2011 and has since grown her menu to nearly two dozen sweet and savory pies. While the margherita chicken pizza pie and other savories make for nice lunches, a Texas Trash Pie loaded with graham crackers, pretzels, caramel, chocolate chips, and coconut is the star of the dessert menu.
Tower City, North Dakota
If there's a lesson to be taken from this list, it's not to discount pie just because it's served in an unorthodox location. Just off an Interstate 94 exit near Fargo is a bakery with pie that diners from all over claim is some of the best in the country. You have to go past the gas station, restaurants, and convenience store to get there, but the travel center's bakery has 15 to 20 pies going at any given time. The coconut cream and strawberry rhubarb, in particular, are worth your time.
Rock Springs, Arizona
The Rock Spring Cafe's been here since 1918 and loves nothing better than to leave its Interstate 17 travelers with a sweet little nightcap. The rest of the menu has merit, but you're here for the Jack Daniels pecan pie made with Arizona pecans. If you think it's too rich for a day on the road, get a take-and-bake frozen pie — or have one shipped to any state in the U.S.
Pescadero, California
Owned by the same family since 1894, Duarte's serves up steak, cream of artichoke soup (made from artichokes grown in the back garden), and fresh fish specials such as abalone sandwiches and local halibut, sole, and snapper. It's also been making olallieberry pie since the 1930s. With just a bit of flour and sugar holding it all together, it's a lovely showcase for the berries.
De Valls Bluff, Arkansas
Ms. Lena's is open only on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays to sell pies that include apple, coconut cream, chocolate, half and half, southern buttermilk, cherry cream, lemon ice box, peanut butter, egg custard, and lemon meringue.
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Somerville, Massachusetts
Among Davis Square's mix of townie joints and fancier fare, the Rosebud has been both — currently, its "honest food and honest drinks" are on the pricey side. Along with its refurbished diner frontage, the joint's pies, with some half-dozen typically on offer at a time, keep it tethered to a folksier past without actually staying there. And while the bakery staff has been off for some of the pandemic, in June customers should be able to once again make off with some cookie dough brownie pie made with chocolate chip cookie dough chunks, no-bake vanilla cheesecake, and fudge brownie in a chocolate cookie crust.
Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania
The Smucker family's bakery and cafe excels at seasonal favorites such as whoopie pies, apple fritters, pumpkin pies, and fresh strawberry pie. If you only have room for one, wet-bottom shoofly pie made with molasses, eggs, flour, brown sugar, and cinnamon is the bakery's Amish Country calling card.
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Cherry Hill, New Jersey
Ponzio's has been at it since the 1960s, distinguishing itself by baking its apple, coconut custard, "lemon rush," and apple, cherry, and blueberry crumb pies. It's best pie may just be the chicken pot pie, though, traditionally served only on Thursdays.
Salt Lake City
From sour cream pancakes to the bacon and pure maple waffles to the whipped-cream-topped hot chocolate, Penny Anne's all-day breakfast is a sweet deal. But a cup of coffee and a slice of one of its massive pies — banana cream, chocolate mousse, lemon raspberry cream, Key lime, buttermilk, raisin pecan custard, crumble, coconut cream, and chocolate peanut butter — makes for an ideal indulgence. Our pick: The coconut cashew white chocolate chip.
Lahaina, Hawaii
On the drier leeward side of Maui, Leoda's produces "glorified grandma comfort food" including fresh baked bread, hot sandwiches, hot dogs, burgers, and savory hand pies and pot pies. But it's the macadamia nut chocolate pies, coconut cream pies, Olowalu lime pies, and praline pies that make it worth the trip.
