House of Pies

Some are called to greatness, others become piecutters.  

 

Before Marie Callenders, before Polly’s Pies there was House of Pies--a franchise that  flourished until it stumbled to a close in 1986.  My experience at House of Pies started my senior year in high school, when I vowed to get myself a summer job.  During that Easter vacation I had a plan: start at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and 26th Street in Santa Monica, California and walk in the direction of the beach, stopping at every conceivable job opportunity and offering my services. Aside from folding clothes at a laundry, I was devoid of any experience whatsoever.  So--a fresh slate.

 

Offices, coffee shops, a florist, a bowling alley--all in mystifying agreement declined my eager offer of employment.  After 20 blocks of rejection, I opened the glass doors of House of Pies and trudged inside.  I didn’t particularly like coffee shops.  

 

Could I cut pies? the manager asked.  He was a skinny guy, with a short-sleeved white shirt and tie.

 

Sure, I said.

 

You’re hired, he said. 

 

Instead of trumpets and a band, all I got for the occasion was a corrugated stovepipe paper hat, an apron, and an appointment to show up half hour early the next day for training.

 

On that occasion, this other tall, white guy showed me the ropes and then disappeared.  In hindsight, management must have known he was leaving--or had been planning his exit.  But in short order, I ascended to senior pie cutter. 

 

In those days, downtown Santa Monica was a bustling urban hub.  Swaths of humanity came through,  pouring in after movies down the street, sitting at the counter or at tables,  the rich, poor, urbane, slovenly, quiet, voluble.  Who doesn’t love a pie? 

 

On the Fourth of July in those days, the city held fireworks shot off the pier (maybe a mile away).  Afterwards, we were slammed, everyone in town thinking patriotism and House of Pies. We zipped through extra racks of pies, and I earned my $1.90 an hour (plus  tips).  

 

I worked weekends--Friday nights, Saturday nights, Sunday days.

 

I’d clock in, white apron over my khakis and white shirt. I’d tap on my ridiculous, foot tall hat, securing it in place, finishing off the official pie-cutter’s uniform. (During this era, I was growing my moustache to reach over to my lambchop sideburns.   Sadly, no photos survive, all mysteriously burned.)

 

 All the way in the back of the restaurant I would clock in and then meander up past the kitchen, where chefs worked their magic overnight.  I didn’t ask too many questions.  Maybe there was a big House of Pies’ operation elsewhere, baking for the masses in some pie warehouse.  Closer to the front of the house, wheeled racks of whipped cream pies stood in coolers, at the ready.  Right in back of the front cash registers and counter,  next to the floor to ceiling window, racks of fruit pies and meringues enticed passersby.

 

To start my shift, I’d come around the corner, say hi to the cashiers, and assume my station at the pie display, front and center in the restaurant.

 

When hired, I had not appreciated the theatrical nature of the pie cutter position.  But there I was, at the heart of a flattened out  horseshoe of counterspace--a broad parabola of formica,  affixed swivel stools behind.  At the center of the parabola, perched a pie island,  a column of pies.  I assumed my position, facing the counter, behind the pie island.  Near me, a broad landing area of fruit pies stood, ready to be cut and served.  Tucked below was a small refrigerator, holding the cream pies--chocolate, banana, coconut.  There too were the  exotic pink squirrel and grasshopper pies, inevitably drifting toward the back where unpopular pies languished.  

 

At the start of each shift, I stood for a moment, as if a curtain had opened. I nodded. (Decades later I have seen sushi chefs make the same bow, but cannot take credit.) Then I began, snapping a check from its spot clipped to the lazy susan in front of me and set to work, an improvised ballet, different every shift but having many of the same moves.

 

Two apples.  (Not Dutch, not French, but plain apple.) Grab a spatula, wooden handle poised, metal submerged in cleaning water.  Two swipes against a clean towel.  Position the pie tin. Two surgical strikes--one, to free the piece--center to crust, feeling that crisp break , then, two, to swoop under it and deliver it to the hovering plate.  One slice, two--order complete. Plates positioned on the semi-circle.  The final flourish--slide the check under the plate. Ready for the waitress. 

 

Assume the position.  Snap up the next check.

 

Repeat.  

 

Now, there were certain things that would rankle an experienced pie cutter.  House of Pies regulations called for most pies to get seven pieces per pie.  To encourage this yield, we had piecutter molds.  

 

Waitresses, forced into being amateur piecutters during slower shifts, pressed these gangly structures into the pies, rudely making the crust concave, insulting the sight lines of trained professional piecutters, who, of course, preferred to work freehand.  One seventh of a pie was a puny slice of pie, not worthy of the name House of Pies.  The one-seventh rule seemed arbitrary.  Pumpkin pies, as I recall, had a yield of six.  Six pieces had a symmetry, a fullness that pleased the eye.  One seventh seemed scrawny.

 

My secret mission:  resist the rule of seven. 

 

Sometimes the remaining seventh piece was, sadly, so slight that, alas, it could not be served.  What could be done with it?  Well, if it were fresh strawberry, and if two such miscreants were to turn up during a shift, well, the strawberries could form the basis of an excellent, improvised shake.  Thus, were many shakes created, blueberry, cherry, banana--sometimes a crazy mix--all appreciated by staff during their lunches.  Sometimes a pie cutter might have one going mid-shift, the shake waiting around the corner for a break in the pie-cutting action.

 

Sometimes, an indulgent customer would order whipped cream which the waitress--no waiters in those days--or I would add from a bag of fresh whipped cream.  Adding the cream to, say, a fresh glazed strawberry or peach pie was a wonderful flourish, twisting the bag at the top and applying firm consistent pressure, moving the plate as the swirls of whipped cream nudged forward, ending in a nice, upward peak. 

 

I personally was not crazy about pecans, but the pecan pie had a decent following.  I didn’t know that the gooey sweet filling underneath could make a sort of Chess Pie.  My tastebuds led me to discover that, sadly, some of these seventh pieces of pecan could not be served and if they were decapitated, the  sweet bomb that resulted tasted good, especially with some soft-serve ice cream. 

 

Odd memories of my time at House of Pies: 

 

There was the time during a dull stretch around 3 pm one day when I was flinging ice cubes  ceiling-ward and catching them, as they hurtled downward, in my mouth.  When I did this pie cutter/seal routine, conscientious waitresses glanced anxiously at late lunch customers dotting the floor space, making sure I was out of their sightline.  Bored, I surveyed tables, strewn with plates dusted with crumbs, bowls smeared with orange dressing and leaves of lettuce, glasses half empty, melting ice at the bottom. My shoulder blades rested comfortably against the wall, hips slightly thrust out.

 

“I should organize a Piecutters Union,” I muttered to Mary, the head waitress.  I’d heard of a piecutter over at the Hollywood store, which I’d never even visited (a store which appears to have persisted, even today).  The two of us could vote our union into existence.  “Then we’d really get a decent wage,” I said.  “I could put a muffler on my Volkswagen,” I said.

 

Mary was a large woman.  Sometimes she’d joke around, but she didn’t take up my call for, say, a waitresses’ union--which would outnumber my theoretical piecutter union 20-1.  I thought she was just being sly and slightly bored, as she sized me up behind her round glasses.  

 

“That would be something,” she said.

 

We finally got busy with a late afternoon rush, and I forgot all about my absurd union idea.

 

Until the next day.  

 

Then the owner came in.  He was tall and bald, of snow man proportions.  When he talked, you could hear him all over the restaurant.

 

That morning I had a ticket or two to fill, when he strode over to my station.

 

“I’d like to talk with you,” he announced, turning quickly on his heel and heading off toward the cash register.

 

I inferred that I should follow.

 

He ducked around the wall into a little alcove where racks of fruit pies stood.  There he stopped.  I stopped, sidling out of the hallway, my back to the pies, facing him.  

 

“You want to start a union?”  He spat the words out.

 

At first I had no clue what he was talking about.  He moved slowly toward me, backing me up against  the pie racks.  His nose advanced.  He stopped, two inches away.  Two thoughts flitted across my brain: he was going to strike me.  He was going to kiss me.

 

In those days I’d seen too many bad movies.

 

A realization hit me; Mary had mentioned my silly idea to the owner.

 

“Oh, I--.”

 

“If a union took root here, the first thing I’d do is sell. No unions.  Understand?”

 

“Of course,” I said.  

 

His eyes bored into mine.  

 

I nodded, as if that would confirm the deal.

 

And thus was Piecutter Union #1 crushed forever.

 

Oddly enough, it was at this time that I  thought of a career in pie management.  

 

Since we were a franchise, new owners would occasionally cycle through for training.  These guys--all white, late middle-aged men--stood off to the side, like human after-thoughts--as action whirled around them.  In my memory they wore orange blazers and ties, looking official, but carrying no authority whatsoever.  They were outsiders in someone else’s store. 

 

One of these trainee-owners, Darren, had been a tool-and-die guy who’d saved up his money and bought the new House of Pies opening up in Ontario, California--about an hour east of Santa Monica.  I took pity on Darren.  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him manning the register for the first time, bouncing change back to the customers, flustered, forgetting to put the bills in the drawer. He held the whipped cream bag as if it were a chicken trying to get away.  The result was cream oozing out of top and bottom and a blob of cream atop a pie.  I can still picture the forlorn customer carrying off the mess, for which she’d paid extra. 

 

So I taught Darren some basics.   A non-chicken approach to the whipping cream bag. 

 

The quick one-two incision strategy for pie-cutting.  

 

Since pie cutters occasionally took the register, I showed him to make eye contact, lay the big bills horizontally on the till, smile and release the change.  Then when he was more comfortable, we took on those smart-alecky customers  who would give you a $10 bill and a quarter for a $8.20 bill. In those days, the register wouldn’t spit out the correct change or tell you: you had to figure it in your head--which Darren learned easily enough. 

 

Near the end of his stay at our store, Darren approached me.  His store in Ontario was opening soon.  Would I like to be his assistant manager?

 

I was 17.  A former union organizer, making my $1.90 per hour (plus tips).  I was supposed to be going to the University of Southern California in the fall.  I’d have an hour drive each way, assuming I continued to live with my parents.  

 

I mulled it over for a day.  

 

Then I found Darren, thanked him, but said I couldn’t.  He looked me in the eye, shook my hand and said he understood--and thanked me for my help.

 

Then he opened his store, that, now, all these years later, doesn’t exist.  Neither does the one in Santa Monica, for that matter.