Rebecca “Becky” Grasley was a lifelong pie baker who spent her nursing career in rural Pennsylvania. She had dreamed of opening a pie shop while she was raising her kids, but she never thought she’d do it, let alone launch a California pie empire.
Today, the Pie Hole has expanded far beyond its humble beginnings in Los Angeles’ Arts District to retail locations across Southern California and franchises in Japan and Saudi Arabia. You can get her pies and signature “pie holes” via GoldBelly.com and now at Whole Foods markets across the nation.
We caught up with this pie phenom recently to talk about her story, her new cookbook — “Pie is Messy” (Ten Speed Press, $28) and how to bake a perfect Thanksgiving pie. Lemon-Pear, perhaps, or Chocolate.
Q. Why pie?
A. I grew up in a small town in rural Pennsylvania and still live there. I reinvented myself through the years probably 50 times. When my kids were growing up, we talked about having a pie shop. They were little, and I loved to bake pie. If there was a reward to be had, I’d say “Well, great, let’s make a pie!” and if there was something bad, like a bully or something, it was “Aw, let’s make a pie.” Our whole reward system was pie, because there wasn’t a lot of money to be had for anything else. It drew us together.
Not until much later in my life did we seriously talk (pie) again. In 2011, my son Matt lived in L.A., and I was on the East Coast. I flew out with my retirement savings, or what was left of it after 2008 and the bottom fell out of my retirement plan.
Q. It’s a long way from Nescopeck, Pennsylvania, to Los Angeles. How did you decide to start a pie shop in L.A.?
A. Everybody in the small town bakes, but the area is depressed and incomes are lower, so we needed to open a pie shop where people were more willing to put money out for a dessert or a pie — and L.A. was definitely ready for homemade pie. Those people were so excited and welcomed us into that neighborhood, and it was such a good fit.
Q. What was it like starting a pie business with your son?
A. It was scary. The economy still wasn’t very good — it was 2011. My other partner, Sean Brennan, came into the picture pretty soon after Matt. The “boys” found the place and started the build-out. We had so many hoops to jump through with all the renovations. It was really a hands-on project. We were penny-pinching and trying to figure it out, and it certainly took off.
We’re all the way down into San Diego now and outside California. We’re in Gelson’s Markets, we’re in Whole Foods. The dine-in situation never did quite recover.
Q.Tell us about the cookbook. There are longtime family recipes, and others that offer new flavor combinations. How does all that fit together for you?
A. The cookbook was a five-year labor of love, and I’m pretty proud. It’s beautiful.
The shop opened with two flavors — fresh strawberry and chocolate silk pie — and family recipes. (But) we have always encouraged the chefs to use their creative minds, because they definitely want to and a lot of times are discouraged, when they’re working in kitchens under another chef. It made me feel good to let somebody use their creative juices and the basics and expand upon them into these wonderful concoctions.
Now we’re known for the Earl Grey tea pie (inspired by) “Downton Abbey.” With the Cereal Killer pie, it was the same thing — people wanted to eat that while they watched “Dexter.” I like that my family recipes are still on our menu alongside the ones the chefs created.
Q. What are your long-term dreams for the Pie Hole?
A. Since the pandemic, our focus has been on the e-commerce portion of the business and the fact that we can now ship pies nationwide and have perfected that process.
Q. Tell me more about the cookbook title, “Pie is Messy.”
A. It is part of who we are. In the early stages, when we were trying to serve pie, we would have people on our team slicing and serving the pie, and they would get to such a panic that it didn’t stand up in a perfect triangle. I would tell them, “Pie is messy. Don’t worry!” It saved us from overthinking and overfretting. So it just seemed like a perfect title for the Pie Hole cookbook —because pie can be messy.
I used to be in awe of cookbooks like Martha Stewart’s, where she’d be pictured and her counters were so neat. When I bake, my counters look like an A-bomb went off. There’s flour everywhere and dribbles and drops. I learned, when I did the shoot for this book, that those pictures weren’t even in a kitchen — they were in the studio. It made me chuckle, because I used to think, “Man, I am so messy when I bake. Nobody else seems to be that messy.” But they are. I’m sure they are.
Q. What’s your favorite Thanksgiving pie recipe in the cookbook?
A. The pumpkin pie. My grandmother Moe’s pumpkin pie is unlike any pumpkin pie — it’s got a custardy kind of filling.
Q. What else do you want readers to know?
A. I’m just really, really proud. A lot of thought went into making the cookbook usable and for people to make it their own. Every baker has their own little twist on the recipes, so I wanted margins and paper that they could write on — not the glossy stuff. I want people to really love to make pies as much as I do, make memories with their families and write in the margins.
I think back on the memories I made with my own kids and the memories I continue to make with young relatives and family members. I hope everybody picks up this cookbook and makes a memory.
