Normally, the little bakery on North Glebe Road whips up about 1,000 pies a week, in flavors ranging from Southern pumpkin praline (which in 2017 won honors in a Sports Illustrated pie-tasting contest) to salted caramel chocolate chess. But in the two weeks before Thanksgiving, its yield is close to 5,000.
“We call it the Superbowl of pies,” says Heather Sheire, who co-owns Livin’ the Pie Life with fellow Arlingtonian Wendy MacCallum. Apple, pumpkin and pecan are the “trifecta” of Thanksgiving pies, she says, although Key lime is sometimes a wild card favorite as well.
In August, the pair were already placing orders for pie tins and bakery boxes to get ahead of any supply chain issues that might threaten to disrupt their busy season. During the holidays, they beef up staffing with college students home for breaks. On occasion, they have even rented a truck to transport apples from a Maryland farm to their kitchen. They typically go through 4,500 to 5,000 pounds of the fruit from October through December.
Preorders for Thanksgiving close in late October, but the bakery also sells pies to walk-in customers, and demand can get a little frenzied as Turkey Day approaches. “On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, we throw open the doors and sell every single thing we have,” says MacCallum. “We’ve had lines around the block.”
As kids, neither had pie-in-the-sky dreams of one day opening a bakery, though both had relatives who instilled a love of cooking. MacCallum’s family had a restaurant in Florida. “Baking, and sugar in particular, was always what I loved,” she says, remembering the simple Key lime pies of her childhood.
Sheire grew up in Seattle, where her uncle taught her to bake fruit pies with produce from local orchards. “I was his little acolyte. He let me roll out the dough. That’s how I got a passion for pie,” she says. Blackberry has always been her favorite.
By 2012, Sheire had moved east and was living and raising kids in Arlington. She started baking scratch-made pies out of a rented church kitchen and selling them at the Clarendon farmers market. When she met MacCallum through the Barcroft Elementary School PTA, she knew she’d found a kindred spirit and business partner.
“We laugh a lot. We were playing show tunes and got along like gangbusters from the start,” Sheire says. “It was hard physical work, but we were having so much fun. And all these years later we still like each other.”
At first, they worried there wouldn’t be enough demand to keep their venture afloat, but soon they had a devoted following. “People would be waiting for Heather to drive the pies still warm from the oven to the market,” MacCallum says. “That’s when I knew this was really special.”
In 2016, they began scouting for a brick-and-mortar location and found it on the first floor of a 1930s-era garden apartment building at the edge of the Glebewood Village Historic District, where they transformed two apartments into a sunny bakery with a patio.
As their farmers market fans followed them, their reputation grew. So did their repertoire, which now includes savory options such as Southern tomato pie and quiche, plus sweet treats like frosted chocolate brownies and ginger molasses cookies. “We bake every day, so everything is fresh that day,” says MacCallum.
The shop often sells out of all its inventory by closing time. When it doesn’t, it donates whatever is left to local fire and police departments, charities and friends.
To reduce its carbon footprint, the bakery uses sustainable and compostable products such as takeout containers made from sugarcane and forks made from corn starch rather than plastic. “We recycle the heck out of everything,” MacCallum adds.
Many ingredients are regionally sourced from vendors such as Catoctin Mountain Orchard in Thurmont, Maryland; Twin Springs Fruit Farm in Orrtanna, Pennsylvania; and Lois’s Produce on Virginia’s Northern Neck. (Lois’s daughter lives in Arlington.)
It’s both a family business and a neighborhood hub. MacCallum’s 91-year-old mom helps with seasonal decorations. Local high school students work as cashiers. “We are a first job for so many kids,” Sheire says. “We love watching them come in wide-eyed on their first day and then become confident in everything they do here by the time they leave for college or elsewhere.”
The staff of 35 also includes seven bakers and so-called “roller girls” who come in overnight to prepare the dough. Several of the owners’ kids (MacCallum has four; Sheire has two) worked there as teens.
Despite their sellout success—or perhaps because of it—the proprietors have no desire to expand. “Our staff are seasoned, they work quickly, and we take our cues from them as far as our work schedule and capacity,” Sheire says. “We do what we can do and no more. To de-stress, we feed people and make sure that everyone still gets time off as the holidays approach.”
Staying small and local feels just right. “We are so happy to be part of the Arlington community,” she says. “I can’t imagine where else we’d want to be.”
Barbara Ruben is a freelance writer in the DMV. Her favorite pies are pumpkin and cherry.