Hit East Bay Bakery Pop-Up Edith’s Pie Begins Serving Sweet and Savory Slices Later This Month

The wait is almost over for the Bay Area to welcome a cozy new haven for a slice of pie and a cup of coffee. It’s been just over half a year since Mike Raskin and Jeffrey Wright, the duo behind the well-loved Edith’s Pie pop-up, first announced plans to give the business a permanent home in Oakland. Now they’re in the final stretch to welcoming fans into the space at 412 22nd Street, in the former home of Taiwan Bento.

They plan to host an opening and a three-year anniversary party on Saturday, April 29 from 1 to 6 p.m. — followed by the pie shop’s official grand opening the following Wednesday, May 3. The partners say they’re more than ready to settle down and throw open the doors to fans who’ve been following them around the East Bay for years. “For so long we’ve showed up in other people’s spaces and been a guest to them and tried to create our brand inside of their home,” Wright says, “and it's really special to get to invite people into our space.”

Tina Cuevas

The menu, naturally, centers around anything that can be made with the bakery’s flaky crust. The duo estimates that over the past three years of running Edith’s Pie as a pop-up, they’ve written somewhere between 100 and 150 pie recipes; they’ll pull some of the fan favorites — what they call “always pies” — onto the menu. That means you’ll be able to order a slice of key lime, a market-driven fruit pie, and the shop’s self-declared “world famous” Scribble pie, a brown butter maple walnut variety studded with dark chocolate. “When you’re doing it once a week it kind of feels like we got to offer something new and keep them coming back,” Wright says. “So to be perfectly honest we may step back on innovating for the time being.”

All in all, expect eight sweet pies and a selection of savory options including breakfast hand pies, whole pot pies, and quiches. The savory options cover breakfast, lunch, and light dinner options since the shop will be open until 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights. To start the day, customers can come in for one of two breakfast hand pies, one stuffed with housemade sausage, egg, and cheese and the other filled with mushroom, egg, cheese, and spinach. For lunch and dinner, the menu will rotate through eight-or-so hand pie options and quiches made with whatever’s in season. There will be salads, soups, and weekly specials like shepherd’s and pot pies.

Beverages similarly cover day-to-night preferences. Since the shop is surrounded by great options for coffee and espresso, Wright and Raskin say they’ve opted to keep their caffeinated options pretty simple. Drip coffee will be made using Grand Coffee beans. There’s also a coffee tonic beverage that’ll upcycle day-old coffee with a housemade syrup that similarly upcycles apples, excess from all those pies, and Lagunitas Hoppy Refresher. For later in the day, there’s beer and wine plus three low-alcohol by volume cocktails. They’re using the drinks as a way to reduce kitchen waste, so on top of that apple peel syrup, there’s also a beverage made with strawberry tops.

Senny Mau

Senny Mau

As for the space itself, the pair say they initially planned to do more extensive upgrades. But the timing just didn’t quite work out. Instead, they did things like refinishing the stairs and rebuilding the front counter themselves. The service model is “easy as pie,” Weight says, which means all counter service. There’s room for about 25 diners, they estimate, and they went with an “inviting and warm and comforting” color palette. (They’re keeping design details under wraps to make the grand opening party more of a reveal, they say.)

Raskin says moving into the space marks a major milestone for the duo. During a preview event in the winter, he recalls seeing a longtime regular come in to enjoy a slice of pie and a cup of coffee with his son. “It was this moment of looking and seeing them sitting there that's like, oh, we’re doing more than just putting food in front of people,” Raskin says, “we’re giving them a space, and, for me, that really filled up any ‘why are we doing this’ questions.”

Enmeshing themselves in their community has long been a goal, he adds. So in an effort to make sure Edith’s is accessible and affordable for everyone, they’ll also offer Penny Oats, a cup of hot oatmeal that’ll be available on a pay-what-you-can basis. They’re excited to make the space available to the neighborhood for events, they say, things they’ve dreamt about being able to do since starting Edith’s three years ago. “We finally get to move on these things that have just existed in our hearts,” Raskin says.

Edith’s Pie, 412 22nd Street in Oakland, celebrates its opening and three-year anniversary on Saturday, April 29 from 1 to 6 p.m. The shop’s hours will be Wednesday through Saturday from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. with extended hours until 10 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.