Local pie shops are baking up surprises for next week’s Pi Day

Two Arlington pie shops are baking up some surprises for Pi Day, now one of the biggest days of the year for their sales.

March 14 (aka 3.14) is Pi Day, honoring math’s greatest mystery  It has become a day of celebration for mathematicians and dessert enthusiasts alike. Locally, Arlington’s two dedicated pie shops have taken full advantage of this baked good boon.

Last year, Pi Day was “almost-Thanksgiving busy” for Acme Pie Company which opened a storefront on Columbia Pike in 2019. This year, owner Sol Schott is preparing for similar levels of business.

“March 14 is always huge for us,” says Schott, speaking via phone from Florida where he’s enjoying a vacation before heading back home for the big day. “And I think [sales] will be close to what it was last year.”

In 2021, he sold about 100 large pies, 70 small pies, plus “a whole heck of a lot of slices.” This year, he says he’s going to make 500 to 600 pies total for the occasion. While Acme Pie normally has a rotating selection of flavors available, on March 14, the shop is going to try having most of their flavors ready to order.

Schott calls Pi Day one of the “top 3 days of the year” in terms of sales, behind the day before Thanksgiving and possibly Christmas. Both of those days, though, require more lead-up and preparation.

“It’s more of a blip,” says Schott. “But it’s great and we will take it.”

Acme Pie is also participating in BikeArlington’s Bike for Pie event this Sunday, the day before Pi Day. The five-mile ride ends at the Pike pie shop.

Livin’ the Pie Life on N. Glebe Road is where the Bike for Pie event begins.

The 11-year-old shop in the Glebewood neighborhood also is expecting a surge in business on March 14. Normally the shop is closed on Mondays, but this week, it will be open on Pi Day with special sweet offerings.

That includes a “Pi Day sampler box” which will contain three “cocktail-size pies + one surprise equalling 4 sweet treats” (3.14, get it?). Additionally, five random boxes will contain a $20 gift card to make the numerical holiday extra sweet for a few.

They are expecting to sell more than a thousand pies, co-owner Heather Sheire tells ARLnow. That includes the 150 pre-orders the shop has taken already for the sampler boxes. There will also be a hundred or so boxes waiting for those who are walking into the shop looking for a Pi Day treat.

(It’s hard not to get into Pi Day’s numerical spirit. In honor of Arlington’s two pie destinations, for instance, this article and its photo captions are exactly 628 words, or 2 times 314.)

Sheire says it’s hard to compare Pi Day to a normal day since the shop will have offerings that aren’t typically sold.

Thanksgiving is “a different animal,” says Livin’ the Pie Life’s other co-owner Wendy MacCallum, that lasts a whole week in terms of preparation, baking, and sales. This past Thanksgiving, the shop sold about 2,000 pies, she says.

While Thanksgiving is big business, Pi Day is much more fun, the local pie shop owners say. Less stressful and more opportunity to be creative, they note.

“Businesses, schools, mathematicians, they all love Pi Day,” MacCallum says. “And so do we.”