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.
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.
This is incredible. Thank you so much, Michael.
Thank you. My heart is full.