The Pie Shoppe

When sisters Stephanie and Andrea French first opened The Pie Shoppe in December 2012, they pulled it all together — the physical space, as well as all the permits necessary to open a bakeshop — in just 13 days. So how did they manage to launch a small business in less than two weeks? Stephanie credits their success to their incredible network of friends. “We were lucky, from the start, to be able to rely on a group of very talented people who would pitch in," she explains. "Everything here is built by our friends. All the art on display is done by our friends. We first opened using a small beer fridge from my friend’s dorm and a home oven.”

Measuring a mere 310-square-feet, the Gore Street pie shop might be one of the city's smallest storefronts, but that doesn't stop the French sisters from turning out some of the tastiest pies in Vancouver. Sweet and savoury pies are prepared fresh daily with flavours and fillings changing in accordance with the seasons. Dessert pies are sold whole or by the slice, while savoury pies are available to take home and bake. Pie enthusiasts are advised to arrive early as these scratch-made creations are available from 11:00 am each morning until the kitchen runs out.

Although The Pie Shoppe's original beer fridge and the home oven have since been replaced, the sisters have maintained their tight-knit group of friends, and have developed close connections in the local community. “We work with a ton of people in Vancouver and the Lower Mainland,” Stephanie explains, “One of the companies we work with, Sons of Vancouver, is a local distillery that makes the only Amaretto in Canada. Last year, we saved our apricot kernels for them, and they used them to make their Amaretto. They gave us a really nice bottle of Amaretto to thank us, and we’ve been incorporating it into our pies.”