Pie baker enjoys a ful-filling career
Dangerously Delicious owner had rocky start.
In 2003, Rodney Henry was nearly broke. He’d worked a series of odd jobs – from selling insurance to pile driving – struggling to make ends meet while pursuing a rock-and-roll music career. But there was one other thing he’d always been passionate about: pie.
So when he happened to drive by a thrift bakery up for lease in Baltimore, there was only one thing to do.
Fifteen years later, Dangerously Delicious Pies is famous for its punk-rock vibe and thick slices of sweet and savory pie. There are three locations in Baltimore and Washington, D.C., and Henry has been featured on Food Network.
But getting off the ground wasn’t easy. Henry had always loved baking and had started slinging pies in Baltimore in 1999. He frequently gave pies to people who hosted him on music tours. But running a business presented new challenges. After signing the lease, with only around $16,000 to his name, he spent three months almost single-handedly renovating, getting proper permits and ordering equipment.
“Anybody who started out like I did … you’re trying to keep the doors open no matter what, and pay rent, and take care of your family,” he said. “It’s a hustle, especially in the beginning.”
Henry started out serving only a handful of pies – classics such as his personal favorite, apple. But as his business expanded, so did the menu. At the request of a British friend who wanted kidney pie, Henry delved into savory dishes, and the menu now features a variety of meat pies as well as quiche. Whole pies range in price from $30 to $36; you can grab a single slice for $6.50 or $7.50, depending on the pie.
In Dangerously Delicious Pies’ early days, the clientele was eclectic, ranging from Henry’s music friends to prostitutes stopping in for a breakfast pie after a night of work. The restaurant’s atmosphere – a black-and-red color theme, with a skull-and-crossbones style logo with a pie in the place of the skull – hasn’t changed. “It had to be a place where I’d like to hang,” Henry said.
When he founded his shop, the business model of a bakery selling only pies was relatively untested, Henry said. He thinks his focus on a single type of food has been a key to success. “If you’re good at this (pies), stick to it, and so that’s kind of helped us with having the following that we have,” he says.
Henry was a finalist on the ninth season of “Food Network Star” and he also has been featured on “Chopped” and “Throwdown with Bobby Flay.” But after returning from four years chasing the conventional food star dream, he says he’s happier just running his shops and playing music with his band, the Glenmont Popes. “I want to do my own thing,” he said. “I’ll be creative for myself – and for my pies.”
Now 53, twice-married Henry has two children, 15year-old Waylon and 13-year-old Lily-Anne, both of whom, he says, can “bake their butts off.” He bakes about 100 pies a month. And he still loves the look in someone’s eyes when they receive a freshly baked pie.
But would Henry have pursued pie if he hadn’t been in a tight financial spot? Yes, he says, pie was inevitable – though he credits his current success to the hustle of those early years. “If there’s just no possible way you can fail,” Henry said, “then you won’t.”