“Hey, when you have a minute, come out to the front. I have a weird thing to ask you.”
Then a chuckle.
These were the words, thereabout, of the owner of The Whiskey Jar (and subsequently, my boss). Will Richey and John Reynolds took a chance on me when I showed up for a part-time baking job, my peanut butter pie in hand as my resume.
I wrapped up a batch of biscuit dough and walked to the front of the restaurant. It was still early in the morning, and Will sat at a table with a mason jar of Trager Brothers French Roast coffee.
“Do you want to open a pie shop?”
On March 14, 2015 at 9:26a.m., we opened our doors to a line that stretched down 4th St. NE on the Downtown Mall of Charlottesville, VA.
We sold out in 4 hours.
It had taken me about a week to make enough pie to fill the two bakery cases.
After the dust (or flour) settled, Tina sat down at one of our tables, her head heavy in her hand.
“What have we done?”
Our first year, we were only trying to keep up, learn our way, find a staff, and continuously bake pie.
The baking was born from the success of the dessert program at The Whiskey Jar - rustic cobblers, southern pies, quaint and humble offerings made with care. Our foundational values - “fresh - local - made from scratch” - were the core of my baking philosophy.
We thought we were opening a quaint little spot where we worked simple hours and served coffee and pie with a smile.
But like pi(e), irrational and constant, there seemed to be no beginning and no end.
We didn’t yet know we were carving out our identity, customer by customer, an equal exchange of values, learning what was essential, discarding what was not.
Every Pie Day was a celebration, but especially our first.
Faces becoming friends, surpassing capitalistic transactions, becoming transubstantiations, the idea of elemental food and drink becoming something corporeal.
My seminary training wasn’t too far off here. I began to see the pie shop as a sanctuary, individuals gathering for daily bread, a forged community held together with the hot glue of gluten, bound together by butter, pie as the pulpit preaching a message of respite.
2017 made all of those values and philosophies actualized.
The “summer of hate,” as we now call it, saw a Mother’s Day weekend neo-fascist gathering, a KKK rally in July, and the neo-Nazi assembly in August.
There is much to be said about these things.
But the Day After, A13 (August 13th) was the day that singularly stamped our shop as a place of literal safety.
In 2018 we moved into a larger kitchen which allowed us to double our daily capacity.
Thousands upon thousands of savory breakfast hand pies, pot pies, and a seasonal array of sweet pies and treats, including our customer favorite chocolate chip cookies and Bourbon Vanilla ice cream.
In 2019, we hosted a monthly gathering of Charlottesville’s Trans Community. They had the entire shop, behind a closed door, to congregate in safety and appreciation for their beloved identities.
Beyond this, we participated in PACEM’s fundraiser for the city’s houseless individuals and families, hosted interns from CAYIP, and stated The Pie Chest Academy.
After experiencing a domestic terrorist attack on the street of our shop, enduring and navigating a global pandemic wasn’t on the bingo card.
We went from over 15 staff members to 4 overnight.
We had to endlessly pivot.
Drive-thru markets, deliveries, curbside pick-ups.
It was gratifying to see our customers support us in any way possible.
It was always about Stephanie, Gloria, Jude, Jean, and Ruby.
Meeting people at all stages of life and watching them grow, change, age, pass away, be born.
A season to it all.
“Hey Rachel, what does 231 pies look like?”
In our lives, Thanksgiving became Pie-mageddon.
Our first year, we sold a little over 200.
By 2022, we made (by hand, from scratch) over 1,200 pies.
On March 14, 2023, we served our last slice of pie from our brick-and-mortar location on 4th St. NE.
8 years of pie slicing, pie dough, so much butter, serving, become a presence.
What a ride it was.
When we were trying to determine our name, the piece of furniture called “the pie chest” drew my attention.
A place to put food to keep safe.
The Pie Chest?
It became the same.
My partner, Tina, asked me: “What have we done?”
I believe that whatever it was, it was good.
Hi Rachel,
Although this piece isn’t new, I only now bumped into it — and learned the story of the Pie Chest. Your dear shop opened during a time when I visited Cville regularly, but hadn’t yet moved here.
Years before my wife and I moved to Charlottesville, I haunted a family-run bakery in North Arlington. When my daughters were small, we would go to the bakery, choose a donut or a danish, and then enjoy it and each other’s company while we sat on stools and watched the world pass by on Lee Highway. One Sunday morning in 1996, I bought danishes there and drove a few blocks to visit my dad in the hospital, where he’d been admitted the previous day; he enjoyed the treat and passed on the hospital gruel. Three weeks later, I sat on a stool at that bakery, alone, and tried to eat a donut while I digested what I’d done earlier that morning: direct the hospital to remove Dad from life support.
Over the next 25 years, I visited that bakery many more times, and I enjoyed countless donuts, cookies, and cakes. But when moving day came, and we pointed ourselves toward Charlottesville, we stopped one last time at that bakery. I reminded myself that it would still be there — just 2 hours from my new home — and that new (to me), welcoming, and warm places like the Pie Chest awaited me.
Now that your baking has evolved into another format — pop ups more than brick & mortar— I’m relearning what that bakery in Arlington taught me decades ago: it’s the people behind the counter, more than the treat I enjoy on a nearby stool, that make all the difference.
Thank you for making Charlottesville home.
Thank you. My heart is full.