Exploring Life & Business with Lauren Bolden of Pie Bar

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lauren Bolden.

Hi Lauren, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Pie Bar started as a dream. I was working for the State of Georgia and was not happy with the way things were going. I began thinking more about cooking and baking and spent the majority of my free time in my kitchen at home.

I started baking pies specifically and loved the idea of creating something that people have such a deep connection to, specifically in the South. I would bake pies for friends and co-workers in exchange for feedback on how to make the pies even better. I began selling pies at local farmer’s markets, antique shows, breweries, and really anywhere that would allow me to sell pie! After a couple of seasons of markets, my husband, Cody, and I opened our first shop in Downtown Woodstock in September 2015.

Since then, Pie Bar has grown and now has a shop in Downtown Woodstock, a shop in the Marietta Square, and our Commissary Kitchen is located in Kennesaw, Georgia.

Our shops are open daily and serve a rotating menu of sweet pies. Some of our most popular flavors include our Apple Streusel Pie, our Key Lime Pie, and our Bourbon Chocolate Pecan Pie.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Pie Bar was the first business Cody and I ever started. It was also the first time we oversaw other people and the first time I ever worked directly with the public! There was a lot of “we’ll just figure it out” as we went along for the first several years, and even to this day, 6 + years later, I still sometimes say, “I guess we just have to figure it out!”

When we first opened in 2015, Pie Bar was in one location, had less than five team members, and no working plan except “bake the pies” and “sell the pies.” Over the next several years, we focused on forming processes, procedures and being a place that folks wanted to visit.

By the start of 2020, we had gone through normal new business hardships: learning how to properly hire and train new people, figuring out financials (we have to pay taxes?!), and how to best bake, present and serve our product: the pies!

When Covid hit, our entire business changed. We moved exclusively to curbside service and spent months adjusting to the new normal of supply chain hiccups, the potential for interacting with unwell guests and team members and being unsure how things would change on a daily basis.

Through the incredible support of our communities and the diligence of our team members, Pie Bar was able to keep all Full Time Team Members employed, open our second shop in Marietta (silly us, we signed a lease in January 2020!), and deepen our relationship with our communities through projects like adding our second Little Free Pie-Brary, presenting at Atlanta Food and Wine, and Launching an Online Baking Course.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Pie Bar is known for a few things: having fantastic pie served in a super flaky pie crust, giving guests a great experience through personal interactions, and being a cozy space to spend time in.

Having Fantastic Pie Served in a Super Flaky Pie Crust: Our baking team shows incredible care and passion for the pies that they are making on a daily basis. Our bakers train for a minimum of 90 days when it comes to making Pie Bar pie crust, mixing Pie Bar pie fillings, and baking Pie Bar pies. All of our recipes are written by Pie Bar team members and showcase Georgia Grown produce throughout the year! We work with Georgia Farm Partners like Pearson Farm for our pecans, Dickey Farm for our peaches, and Bynes Blueberry Farm for our blueberries because we care about supporting local and having the best quality products to make our pies.

Giving Guests a Great Experience Through Personal Interactions: When a guest enters Pie Bar, we are excited about finding the perfect pie for them! Our team has tried all of our flavors so that they can describe them to guests and make recommendations based on a guest’s personal preference. We are excited about being a part of a community, so we take part in community events and activities, including Marietta’s HarvestFest, Chalktoberfest, and Taste of Woodstock.

Cozy Space: Our shops are cozy both in size and in feeling! We want our guests and team members to feel comfortable and welcome anytime they enter a Pie Bar shop. Whether someone is popping in for a to-go Rosemary Chicken Pot Pie or dining in with a slice of pie and a cup of locally roasted coffee, we want them to “feel the good feelings” while they are there.

Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
When we first opened Pie Bar, we received a lot of feedback from just about everyone: guests, family, friends, people on the internet who had never been to Pie Bar.

This feedback covered everything: our hours, our logo, the parking, the pies, our serving utensils, and so on.

In the beginning, I thought we were doing something wrong based on the volume of feedback we were receiving. Should we change our menu? Should we change our concept? Should we change literally everything about ourselves based on what this person said?

It turns out, people just like to give feedback, and once you know that, you can begin to decipher what feedback is meant for you to hear and what feedback is meant for you to ignore.

That doesn’t mean ignoring all feedback that hurts your feelings and only paying attention to the positive reviews, instead that means that take the feedback and begin to determine what is actually beneficial for you, your team members, and your business and what is just someone else’s opinion.

Contact Info:

• Email: Hello@Orderpiebar.com
• Website: Orderpiebar.com
• Instagram: Pie_Bar
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/orderpiebar