

Originally uploaded by Originally uploaded by pnwbot

Street food is over-hyped. Let’s get back to a trend that got skipped over too quickly: Internet food. Get your sweet tooth ready – if you live or work in Seattle or Bellevue, you can now order pie online and have it delivered the next day, thanks to A la Mode Pies, an online custom pie shop headquartered on Capitol Hill.

“We all love homemade desserts, but don’t know where to find them,” said owner Chris Porter. “I love the idea that you can go online while sitting at your desk at work and order fresh, homemade baked pies, and have them delivered to your doorstep the next day.”

Porter is the “pie guy,” a Capitol Hill resident and former television reporter turned PR rep, who decided to turn his passion for homemade dessert into a career. You can only order the pies online – something that reflects Porter’s desire for innovation and modernity in his business model.

“There’s nothing like this anywhere around here,” said Porter. “It seemed only natural to try an online pie store on Capitol Hill.”

With the ice cream battle well entrenched and cupcake conflagration still in motion, Capitol Hill’s pie wars are just beginning. CHS reported this past fall on the High 5 Pie start-up shaped by Dani Cone of Fuel Coffee fame — by the way, if you are interested in being an investor, Cone has nearly completed her roster — and micro-bakery Mini Empire is a guerrilla force not to be taken lightly.

A la Mode Pies launched this week — insert pie throwing joke here! — and started accepting orders on Tuesday. They celebrated the launch with a private tasting party at the Knee High Stocking Co., the Olive Way bar modeled in the tradition of a Prohibition-era speakeasy. Porter will use the Knee High Stocking Co. kitchen to make the pies every day, since they don’t open until the evening. The bar will also feature pie by the slice.

An A la Mode pie glamour shot

Porter’s pies have names like the Blue Hawaiian, a combination of pineapple, coconut and fresh blueberries; the White Chocolate Banana Cream Pie and the Lemon Macaroon Tart. Then there’s the lollipie – a silver-dollar-sized, lollipop-inspired pie that comes in three different flavors.

“The best compliment we have gotten is that our pies taste homemade,” said Porter. “All of our pies are handmade – we don’t use gizmos to pump them out quickly. They are made from scratch with locally grown organic ingredients for that taste that everyone loves.”

Porter says he finds inspiration for his creations from everyday foods he enjoys.

“I was eating chocolate covered pretzels one day and I was thinking… it’d be really fun to make a pie like that,” said Porter. That idea became the basis for the Chocolate Cream Pie with Pretzel Crust.

Porter is also testing gluten-free recipes and will feature different seasonal flavors in months to come.

“I firmly believe that pie hey day is right around the corner — there’s something beautiful about pie. These are trying times, and trying times call for comforting measures,” he said. “Nothing is more comforting than a delicious piece of pie.”