New York City pie company Fillings, home of the mini pie, has opened its first brick-and-mortar location in the West Village for the holiday season. Located at 272 Bleecker St., the storefront is the brand’s first foray into having an in-person shopping experience for its customers.
Founded one year ago by Katie Kaplan, Fillings started as a drop model company, baking small batches of pies for customers to come and pick up directly from Kaplan.
“The drop model was a great way to meet our customers and see if the concept could actually exist. The one problem we’ve had was being able to consistently produce the pies and have access to our customers,” said Kaplan. “So having a home for us, I think, is the best thing to help us grow and interact more one-on-one with the customers and see what they want, you know.”
“I think the difficult thing with drops is we got to meet our customers, but we didn’t really get to see the full process. Here we’re getting instantaneous feedback on what people really want,” said Fillings Chef Chanah Willis.
The storefront will have five permanent flavors on the menu, Coconut Key Lime, Milk & Cookies, PB & J, Smoky S’mores, and Crème Brûlée, and rotating flavors week to week. Customers will have the option to buy whole 5-inch mini pies or slices for a pie flight, and soon there will be the option to pre-order 9-inch pies. The store also has a line of Fillings-themed apparel and accessories available for purchase.
“I think Katie has really developed this really brilliant evergreen menu, so those are gonna be the five staples that you see when you come into Fillings. Then we have this brilliant idea of doing two rotating seasonal flavors that change every week,” said Willis.
For Willis and Kaplan, making Fillings brings back their own nostalgia for pies, while putting a bit of an elevated twist on their offerings.
“It’s an all-in-one dessert. You get texture, you get variety. It’s that nostalgia feeling and we really wanted to give it more soigné. No one is really just focused on pies, and we needed to bring that back. We need that nostalgia and the love,” said Kaplan.
“I think it’s uplifting, something that’s so nostalgic for both of us, but giving it that kind of Katie Kaplan twist and Chanah Willis twist. It’s a marriage where things are just a little elevated,” said Willis.
The Fillings store will be open until Dec. 24 and is open daily from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, and from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays (or until stock runs out).
For more information, visit fillingsnyc.com or follow @fillings.nyc on Instagram.
