‘Pie Fridays’ Draws a Crowd in the Mission
Every Friday and Saturday around 4:45pm, you’ll start to see a small gathering on the corner of 19th and Valencia. By 5:00pm, a line has wrapped around the block leading up to a tiny, wooden, red cart simply labeled, “Pie.”
Sunde White started baking 10 years ago to satisfy her husband’s insatiable appetite for pies and continued to hone her skills during her time as a bartender—just to fill her nights with more activity. One day, she decided to take her creations to the streets of San Francisco, turning her hobby into a business.
“I would sit for hours, in the middle of winter, freezing, without a customer for hours but I would say to myself as people were walking by, ‘I’ll have a line one day, I’ll have a line one day,'” White says.
And now she does.
Crowd favorites include Toffee Banana Cream and Key Lime, though her flavors change weekly. From strawberry-blueberry and tangelo-raspberry to her infamous double chocolate pumpkin, her pies rival even the most established bakers around the city. Smooth, silky custard fillings give way to impossibly flaky, tender crusts to top her chunky, fruit-filled wedges.
As a bonus, each portion can (and quite frankly, should) be served with a generous dollop of whipped cream.
Generally, Sunde brings four different flavors, and offers them in enormous full slices for $6 or, for those with a smaller appetite (or, like me, want to try a variety of flavors), half slices for $3.
When she isn’t baking, Sunde now runs a greeting card company, surfs as much as possible, and takes care of her elderly dog, Dee Dee.
You can catch Sunde and her little red cart on Fridays and Saturdays on 19th and Valencia from 5pm-9pm, or until she runs out. Weekly variations are available on her website.
