I can think of one regional chain, "Black Bear Diner" in my area that always has a case of individually-sized pies.

In general it feels like the landscape of restaurants is changing. I wonder how much of it has shifted based on the popularity of DoorDash / GrubHub, etc.

I also wonder if people are eating less dessert in general now? I am far more aware of the how bad sugars and sweets are for me than I used to be, and I never order anything for dessert in a restaurant.

I usually think of this —

Nighthawks (Edward Hopper, The Art Institute of Chicago)

I make very good pies, but rarely bake them now. My DH just picked up some delicious Apple Crisp at a farm market. Perfect. Not too sweet and the apple slices still had structure.

SinceThanksgiving, I have been thinking of, longing for a good slice of that deep, rich chocolate pudding pie in a worthy crust.

I think Marie Callender's still has a pie case, but it has been a few years since I was in one of those restaurants.

The East SF Bay Area used to have a couple of restaurants called Prings. They were called coffee shops back in the day. Open 24 hours and had a full in house bakery at the front. You could get breaskfast, lunch or dinner around the clock or just stop in for coffee and a donut. pie or pastry and sit at the counter. They had the best fresh baked loaves of portugese sweet bread and wonderful coconut macaroons. I really miss that place. There was one left through the 90's. Foreign investors bought it and ran it into the ground.

We have a few mom and pop diners around but they are pretty spread out. Due to financial considerations a lot of mom and pop establishments have cut back their hours to breakfast and lunch only. Even places for dinner tend to close by 8 now. Used to have a number of restarants open until 10 or even later.

Holidays are, I guess, pie season. There is currently in my area an explosion of cottage industry including pies. Prices go from moderate to very expensive. The pictures are very enticing.

I remember many years ago various foods (mostly tamales) from the families of some of the people I knew and worked with, but have not purchased pies or anything else from local people I don't know in response to fb ads because of possible health concerns.

In Orange County CA, we have Polly’s Pies. I can walk there.

I do my best to forget about them because its a dangerous situation.

If you're looking for the diners, come to NJ. We still have plenty.

We don't go to them very often but we were in one just last week and I don't remember seeing the pie/cake case. There were some wrapped muffins on the counter.

IMO, those cakes and pies always looked better than they tasted.

It was quite a few years ago DH and I were driving through PA and stopped at a diner to eat. They had one of the cake and pie rounders going around with a big sign "All Baked on Premises". As we were there, there was a van that came in and loaded in some new pies...clearly "puffing" about where the desserts were baked!!

Have grocery store bakeries always had pies? Has that had an impact on pies in diners and other restaurants? It seems like so many people just pick up pies for holiday meals from the grocery store (not throwing shade here).

Like @Ally De I also tend to avoid ordering dessert from restaurants. First, the taste and enjoyment seem to rarely match the price. Second, I also am trying to minimize my consumption of desserts and if I've already enjoyed a meal out, I rarely feel the need additional calories and sugar.

This is an interesting topic.

There are a few around my area that still serve pie.

@deegw - We are meeting a friend for breakfast at Corky's this Sunday. It is near her house and on the way back from the desert for us, an easy stop. I will check out the pie situation.

We have a restaurant that specializes in pies fairly close by, Polly's Pies mentioned by @1929Spanish-GW. Also, a few others not a long distance away. I do agree that pies are not as prevelant in dessert menus as in my younger days, often missing entirely. Love a good pie, still a top dessert for us.

Along the same mind as pies disappearing, I truly miss the type of restaurants that we used to call cafes, a step above a diner. The pretty table service restaurants where you could get a nice meal, seats were comfortable and you could easily hear each other speak. Much harder to find these days.

DH was reminding me of a place we have here in Pasadena called Pie ’N Burger. When I was in junior high a friend’s mom worked there and would bring home what was left from the day of various pies. I LOVED going to their house! It’s one of those small little places that’s iconic and always packed with people.

@Annie Deighnaugh, maybe they were just taking the pies for a little outing LOL

I used to work at a local restaurant and would bake two lemon meringue pies every night to include in the dessert offerings. The locals knew about them and they were very popular.

There used to be a Sheri's restaurant in my town that specialized in breakfast, burgers and pies. They were a local to Oregon chain, but bit the dust last year. Now for pies we have "The Blue Raeven" a pie and farm stand type of store. They are local, and the fruit is from their family farm in the Willamette Valley, where I live. Massively good pies!!! Thanks for the reminder! They can make wonderful Christmas gifts.

" I thought Bakers Square went belly up years ago. "

You're right, sushipup. It shut down, got revived, and shut down a few times. Now a few are left in the Midwest but under one of the succession of new owners. Here's the story:

Bakers Square Wiki

I don't think "diner" was ever widely used in California. I first heard the word on a long ago first trip East. Those things were usually called 'coffee shops" in this area, as wild said.

I hadn't heard of Corky's and looked it up. But for one exception, it's away from the populated coastal strip of SoCal. The western-most location is in Pomona, the remainder are to the east of there.

A lot of these places that are around now in my area seem to be more one of a kind small operations. Most of the large chains are gone. Menus are often limited to breakfast, sandwiches and salads. They often close in the afternoon, before dinner. Many do not offer desserts of any kind.

We have two fabulous diners here in the township, just east of Chestnut Hill. But both are breakfast/lunch places only. And no pies. But great food. If I am starving at 2 am, where do I go? Wawa, are they open 24/7?

This brings back memories of a great BBq restaurant that was in town for years until they had a kitchen fire about 5 or so years ago. Gibson’s Barbecue. Family-owned and run place that served breakfast as well. And they had a pie case and a couple of ladies who made the pies on-site I believe. They only had Lemon icebox, Chocolate meringue, pecan and coconut cream, iirc but they were delicious. Once a year on their anniversary, a slice of pie was free with lunch. The bbq was some of the best in town and I loved their stew as well. My mother would take us there for lunch when we were kids & came to the city for shopping, doctor appts. I swear a couple of the same ladies were still working there as waitresses 30-40 years later.

They decided it was too expensive to rebuild to current code requirements. In other words, their insurance wouldn’t cover the additional cost. People still talk anout how much they miss the place. One of the slightly related family members has a similar restaurant in a nearby town and the owner is an award winning bbq master. He is the guy who introduced the world to Alabama White Sauce for chicken, and his bbq chicken is really very good. They also have pies but i have not tried theirs.

I think one issue is there are not enough good pie bakers around anymore either. True, we don’t eat many desserts now but a good slice of pie is a nice treat now and then.

I completely agree with you Sushi, the pies are GONE 🙁 I love pie, am devoted to pie and it is by far my favorite dessert. Most commercial pies are terrible though, and when restaurants did have pies they were almost always purchased frozen from a food service company. One of my favorite movies is The Waitress, not just becuse it stars Keri Russell but it also stars pie!

" He is the guy who introduced the world to Alabama White Sauce for chicken "

The word is spreading slowly, I'm not sure it's even crossed the US yet. :-)

Pie is alive and well in Maine! The town over from us is home to a Maine institution, Helen’s. They have a pie case you need to walk by on the way to your table. People are know to reserve their pie choice befor ordering their meal, lest their favorite is gone. Their blueberry is legendary

We also have The Pie Lady, who has a pie box outside her home that she fills each mornign with 6 pies of various flavors which posts on facebook and they go quickly. You can order directly too.

Then there’s The Pie Ladies, which is a grouo of mennonite women, who sell pies and other baked good every weekend

@jill302 I was surprised at your reference to cafes vs diners. I never really thought about there being a difference and think I call them both the same thing. Not sure if what I'm thinking of and referring to is a cafe or a diner. We have one really popular restaurant in town that has 'diner' in its name, but I think of it as a cafe, too. Maybe diner is more regional?

Our Marie Callender's closed over forty years ago. Every time I got on a plane to Florida, to visit mom, I had to stop and pick up two Boysenberry pies 🥧

Loiusville area has the Pie Kitchen's which are just fabulous! Love eating there when we are in town.

Note to self: 1) book a trip to Maine, specifically to near where localeater lives

2) find out where localeater lives

Sushipup2 wrote ”They would serve the apple pie heated with a slice of cheddar cheese and…”

Someone told me of a Wisconsin Pie Law — Apple pie is required to be served with a slice of cheese. (Wisconsin cheddar?)

The Miss Florence Diner in Northhampton, MA (of some renoun).

It’s in the Five College area — Amherst, Hampshire, Smith, Mount Holyoke College and the University of Massachusetts.

🔹 https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g41742-d522442-Reviews-Miss_Florence_Diner-Northampton_Hampshire_County_Massachusetts.html

Speaking of diners, remember when every diner served liver and onions/bacon? Nobody, it seems, eats liver anymore. (I do, but only from pasture raised animals.)

Both Bakers Square and Perkins have closed a lot of stores. I used to LOVE Baker's Square French Silk and Strawberry Cream Cheese pies. I recently got a coupon in the mail for their pies. I thought they had closed all their stores. The card gave no indication where there was a store or how to find one. I looked online and couldn't find one. Had I been able to I would have gone and used the coupon. I did later happen to find a store not too far away but I'd already ditched the coupon.

I don't love pie as I don't like pie crust. I don't mind the ones that don't have a top crust - like apple with a crumb crust or pumpkin or something with a graham cracker crust like key lime. However I'd never make pie when I could make a crisp or a pumpkin dessert with no crust instead. My mom and grandmother were big pie bakers/eaters. I think I've only made pie crust once in my life - using Fluffo and the recipe on the can. It turned our great.

My grandmother used to make a delicious flaky savory crust with Crisco, flour and a little salt. It tasted great with the sweetness of her pies - mostly apple from the tree in the backyard, sometimes homemade dark chocolate pudding. I'm sure it was very healthy!

My mother, sisters, and I recently had lunch at an independent/local (not a chain) burger joint (they offer a few other choices, open 'til 10p) in a nearby "bigger town." They have a dessert display case (altho cakes, not pies).

My mother's father was apparently well known for his love of pie- so much so that he would eat his pie first before his dinner to be sure he had room for it :-D Mom told me her mother was great at pies, not so great with cakes. Mom was the other way around. I'm pretty good at both :-D

@Kendrah, there's an old saying that "Apple pie without some cheese is like a kiss without a squeeze" :-)

Pie is king. Specifically berry. I was invited to a friend's for Thanksgiving and was asked to bring a pie, NOT pumpkin. So I went with apple and used a filling technique I'd never done before. This single pie contained 3/4 lb. of butter (aside from some leftover scraps of dough). It was delicious. All the 75 or so years I've been baking pies, this is the first one with a lattice. I used my biggest, deepest pie dish and won't do that again as it took forever for all the apples to soften, although all that time in the oven meant the bottom crust was crispy and golden.

Bunny, that is a totally gorgeous pie.. thanks for it and making me slobber all over my kitchen. you are my apple pie queen,, westy

Beautiful pie Bunny! My current most-baked is blueberry pie that uses a novel method: one cooks half of the fruit to a semi-jammy state and then mixes in the other half of the fresh, uncooked blueberries. It’s absolutely delicious, an ATK recipe. Apple rum raisin is still my favorite though. I mde one a few weeks ago and ate it for breakfast a few times 😁 I find myself deliberately buying more apples than we can possibly eat so I will have to use them up in a pie.

Bunny - now THAT'S a pie! I'm sure it was fabulous.

I haven't been in a diner with one of those rotating dessert case in forever, but there are still quasi- delis in the Chicago area that have them. I say quasi because they are largely Greek owners and although some menu items are deli adjacent, the menus are wide ranging from typical deli fare.

There is a pie place in Chicago, just a teeny tiny place on Chicago Ave called Hoosier Mama - & another location near Northwestern U - they do pie flights, or used to. Great idea, 3 or 4 tiny pieces to share with friends, a bite or two of each with coffee - heaven.

Petalique - Thanks for mentioning Miss Flo's diner - I forgot about it and haven't been there in years. I'll have to bring my grandchild there sometime so they can make their own diner memories.

Skipping down to comment that when I was in high school(1970s), I worked at a very popular breakfast & lunch restaurant where they made mile high lemon meringue and banana cream pies - I swear the meringue toppings were at least 3 inches thick. Those pies were most definitely made on the premises. They did everything from scratch - even homemade sausages.

One of my jobs was deboning boiled chickens for salads.

P.S. After reading comments I'd like to add a fun fact: my nephew is in Waitress, and BIL played the minister, as my sister and BIL were very good friends with the late Adrienne Shelly and her husband, who had a little girl the same age as my nephew, and the 2 kids were close. Nephew's at the end - in the group of little kids at the restaurant.

P.P.S. My dad, a born & bred NYer, with parents from London always had a slice of cheddar cheese with both apple and mincemeat pies 🙂

This is an online picture of two dessert displays at Eagle Diner in Warminster, probably a little over half an hour from Chestnut Hill. I haven't been there in a couple years, but the food was always good, and it's open every day until 9. They have an onsite bakery. You can also order pies to go.

The 24 hour diner around the corner from me has a dessert carousel right next to the door, with pies, cakes and baklava. I can count at least six diners within a dozen block radius of my apartment. Some have the carousels, but most have desserts on display behind the counter. What I miss is a particular pie from a diner that's long gone (along with my youthful sweet tooth.) It was lemon meringue with a layer of chocolate pudding. Sounds weird but at 2 in the morning, there was nothing better!

Crazy sounding combination jupidupi.

I seldom partake of pie, but some of my favorites, outside of the standard fare, include.

🔹 Black bottom banana cream pie — layer of semi sweet chocolate at the bottom of the filling, atop the lower crust.

🔹 Home made, baby bottom smooth custard pie

🔹 Sour cherry pie with lattice top

🔹 Wild Blueberry Pie

🔹 Really excellent lemon meringue

Still lots of diners by me, gps shows 5 within a 5 mile radius, though I could probably name as many that have closed. I think they go under as their clientele go under, if you know what I mean.

But for the most part they’ve got no soul. I think somewhere along the line they tried too hard to please everyone, creating pages-long menus of borderline mediocre food at no longer cheap prices. If I see a small diner that looks likr it hasn’t seen fresh paint since the 1970’s, that’s where I’m stopping for a greasy burger with sauteed onions. The big, mirrored things around here, not so much. Too many actually good breakfast, lunch or dinner places to choose from.

Anyway I thought of this thread as I went out to buy Powerball tickets, and snapped a couple pictures of the dessert cases at two of my closest diners. I see a couple pies in the first one.

I think a berry pie (preferably mixed berries, but not required) is my favorite dessert. If it's on the menu, I'm having it. Unfortunately, it's usually not very good but doesn't stop me from trying.

Marie Callendars used to sell a small berry pie in the freezer section of the grocery store. You had to bake it. It was actually really delicious. When DH and I were dating, and he would spend the weekend at my house we would always share one very late at night while binge watching something on TV. I haven't seen it in years but I also am almost never in the grocery store anymore.

There is a farm here that sells home made pies. The berry pie can be very good but it can also strangely be just meh. I don't know if they have different bakers or what. In fact, one time is was really not good. We decided it had no sugar at all. DH asked them the next time he was there and they apologized profusely and gave us another pie. Got the feeling they knew that batch had been a huge mistake. On the other hand, their fresh cut up chicken (which they raise on site) never disappoints. Have not been able to enjoy grocery store chicken since discovering it.

@jsk, yes, berry pie is the dessert to rule them all.

I have not baked a pie in ages — it must be time. I used to sometimes snap photos of them. This is the only pie pic on my iPad:

Custard pie. Careful to not overbake. It jiggles, evenwhen done. Delicious ice cold for breakfast.

Gregg's in RI are noted for their pies.

A young couple recently started this pie company : Babes Pie Co.

We would vote for berry pies too, but not necessarily baked. We love a good Glace pie, preferably made from our own raspberries but strawberries work too! In fact we are such ardent pie fans #2DD will have pie at her wedding vs cake. We abandoned birthday 'cake' years ago for pie!

Arcy, my cousin’s daughter also wanted pie at her wedding. Her mom made close to 200 miniature pies (like 4” or 5”) herself for the reception!