The delicious story of S.F.’s Revenge Pies.
Hell hath no deliciousness like a baker scorned. The story of Revenge Pies in San Francisco.
Elizabeth Simon had no intention of starting a pie company.
It all began when Simon, in an effort to impress a guy, decided to bake him a pie.
It was the first time she had ever made a pie — a classic apple pie. Simon spent the entire day working to create, in her words, “the most beautiful pie” — complete with elaborate latticework and decorative pastry leaves.
Unfortunately, things didn’t go according to plan.
“I got stood up,” Simon says. “We were texting back and forth all day, and he was definitely into this whole process and five minutes before it comes out of the oven, I sent the final text of ‘Come now; it’s done!’” The guy never showed. Rather than get mad, Simon decided to kill him with kindness. Sort of.
She had leftover filling and dough, so she made a second, mini version of the pie. But this time, she downloaded an Internet image of a fist with an extended middle finger and used the photo as a template to cut a design into the top crust.
“It’s just one of those funny things in life, and you can either cry about it or make a f— you pie and deliver it to his door, which is what I did,” Simon says with a laugh.
Simon’s girlfriends encouraged her to take the concept a step further.
“They were like ‘Oh, you should build a website and you should call it revengepies.org and you should accept stories from San Franciscans and anonymously deliver f— you pies across the city. You’d be a superhero,’ ”Simon recalls.
And that’s how Simon started Revenge Pies.
She practiced her pie baking skills, sharing the results with friends and colleagues. Eventually, people began asking to buy the pies, but as someone who also held a stressful 9-to-5 job as a concert promoter for AEG Live, this proved a challenge. To keep orders at a minimum, she tried to outprice demand, but that still didn’t curb the requests.
Two years ago, she decided to go all in and began holding pie pop-ups around San Francisco, selling her pies through Uber Eats and even teaching pie-making classes as teambuilding events for corporations.
Simon now oversees a staff of roughly a dozen people — mostly women, she points out — who turn out hundreds of handmade pies a week at a commercial kitchen space she rents in the Mission. In addition to being a regular at Off the Grid on Friday nights at Fort Mason, four months ago Simon opened a tiny brick-and-mortar location in the Inner Sunset, in a shared space with clothing and custom printing retailer San Franpsycho.
For Simon, who is a musician as well as a onetime music promoter, pie is simply another form of creative expression. “I’m an artist who’s applying my talents in different ways and I’ve always done that. Every project I’ve done throughout my entire life has been eclectic and different.”
One of Simon’s more eclectic creations — and proving that revenge is a dish best served cold — is what she calls “pice cream.”
It’s exactly what it sounds like: Simon folds chunks of her pies — such as key lime, blueberry and strawberry — into different ice cream bases made for her by Mission gelateria La Copa Loca. The specialty has proved a popular draw for neighborhood locals, as well as visitors heading to and from Golden Gate Park. Up next: adding savory pot pies to her menu.
As for that original guy, Simon says he eventually texted back: “Thanks for the “f— you pie.” They’re still friends. But that’s not what’s important.
“This is really the story of how I got stood up and made a company out of it,” Simon says.
Revenge Pies: 1248 Ninth Avenue, S.F.. www.revengepies.com. Open daily 9 a.m. - 9 p.m. (until 8 p.m. on Sunday)
Sarah Fritsche is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sfritsche@sfchronicle.com Twitter/Instagram: @foodcentric