Dallas’ best pie shop is coming to Fort Worth’s South Main Village; here’s the date
South Main Village has landed a prize.
A Fort Worth location of Emporium Pies, the Dallas temple of pie pleasure, will open April 23 at 411 S. Main St.
Founder Megan Wilkes’ shop will start as a takeout window, then add dining room service by the winter holidays.
It’s the fourth Emporium for Wilkes, who grew up on her mom’s chocolate pie in Maypearl in Ellis County and went into the pie business nine years ago in Dallas’ Bishop Arts District.
Emporium, a coffee-and-pie shop with a late-night and weekend following, features a deep-dish Granny Smith apple pie, or a French silk chocolate pie in regular or gluten-free, with a crushed-pretzel crust.
But there’s also a regular rotation of other fruit, cream and chess pies, including the current red-velvet chess pie.
“We have a lot of orders from here — we’ve known Fort Worth has wanted us for a long time,” Wilkes said.
Emporium had planned to open in Sundance Square and even took the plans to a city commission. But the lease didn’t work out.
“I still hope we can get a little walk-up window in Sundance, too,” she said. “Maybe Fort Worth has so many people who love pie that we’ll need both locations.”
For Emporium, pie has been the ticket to expansion across Dallas-Fort Worth from McKinney to Deep Ellum, Bishop Arts and a coming location in north Dallas.
Wilkes graduated from college in 2008 during the Great Recession. Her degree was in interior design.
“It was probably the worst year to graduate from college,” she said.
But it was also the age that gave us great independent entrepreneurs, from Kari Crowe-Seher’s Melt Ice Creams to Emma and Travis Heim’s Heim Barbecue.
Emporium Pies’ Bishop Arts location drew attention right away. Chef and head baker Mary Sparks came up with a selection of pies that also includes butterscotch cream and key-lime custard, but Emporium made one key strategic decision.
In Wilkes’ words: “We just make pie, and we never change that.”
When Emporium made its surprise South Main Village debut Sunday to announce the new location on National Pi Day, the company pie truck “Bessie” sold out by early afternoon, was restocked and still sold out three hours early.
Sales were double what Emporium expected, Wilkes said.
“Fort Worth really turned it on for us,” she said.
The new shop helps establish the emerging South Main Village retail district south of downtown, within walking distance of both the downtown convention center and the Trinity Express rail station.
The location is part of the 4-Eleven event center in a space vacated by the Winton and Waits retail shop, moving to an adjacent space.
Ironically, the shop’s April 16 opening is the day after the projected April 15 retirement of 55-year owner and pie baker Mike Smith at the south side mainstay Paris Coffee Shop. (It will continue under managers and staff.)
Wilkes grew up going to a similar breakfast-lunch cafe in Maypearl, the Busy Bee.
“We’ve gone to the Paris and we hope we get to see [Smith] again” before he retires, she said.
“They do a great job.”
The flagship shop, 314 N. Bishop Ave., is open from 11 a.m. daily; 469-206-6126; emporiumpies.com.
This story was originally published March 14, 2021 at 12:00 AM.
