WASHINGTON DC (WUSA) -- In the wars of sweets, pie is taking on the cupcake.
At Dangerously Delicious in Northeast Washington, the little cakes never stood a chance. The shop, dedicated to a slice of Americana, makes an impression too.
"It's a rock and roll pie shop," says Ryan McLaughlin of Dangerously Delicious. "You come in and see all these crazy picture on the walls. You have loud music playing. People working her with tattoo and attitudes... nice... attitudes." Nice attitudes, more of an obsession really, with pie. "What we're doing is taking an old fashioned product and surrounding it in this kind of environment and making up a few recipes that people really dig," says McLaughlin.
Digging into pie, a consumer trend that the DC food scene is waking up to. The comfort food is popping up on menus throughout the Washington area, with diners hungry for more. "We noticed that a segment of our customer base was coming in just for pies. So, the pies have definitely established themselves as one of our hottest sellers," says Danielle Poux, owners of Danielle's Desserts in Tysons Corner, Va.
722 million pieces of pie were served across America last year. NPD Group says that's up about 12 million slices over 2009, after years of stagnation, while cake sales took a hit. Pie sales are not likely to overtake cupcakes any time soon. But in a sign of their growing hip status, the search term topic of "pie" has been beating "cupcake" on Google Trends nationwide and in the Washington region.
Poux thinks the growing popularity of pie harkens back to a theme that made cupcakes so popular in the past few years; nostalgia. She says "people come in and they have very emotional reactions." Poux says "the comment we hear more than any other is this really reminds me when I was back at home, when I was a child or when I was at my grandmother's house."
Businesses are stepping up to get a bigger piece of the pie. Poux says "we're seeing pies for birthdays now, where people want us to write 'Happy Birthday on a pie." Or pie on the go with Dangerously Delicious's food truck. Grandma's recipes are really going places.
Written by Jessica Doyle
9NEWS Now and wusa9.com