Come to Strawberry for an empanada like no other at PIEbar
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PIEbar in Strawberry offers an incredible selection of sweet and savory empanadas. Photo: Courtesy of Kim Brennan
Named for plentiful strawberries that grew there, the community of Strawberry should perhaps now be better known for a different treat — empanadas.
State of play: Kim Brennan opened PIEbar five years ago on Highway 260 in the small unincorporated town north of Payson, and business is booming.
- The menu, which started with five empanada varieties, now boasts 30 different homemade sweet and savory hand pies.
- PIEbar also sells tiny fruit pastries called blossoms, whole pies, cocktails and other beverages.
- The restaurant is hard to miss — look for a line snaking out the door and a sign featuring an image of an exuberant Salvador Dalí.
Flashback: The COVID-19 pandemic wasn't an ideal time to start a restaurant, Brennan said, but she'd already finished renovations and ordered all of her equipment, so she decided to move forward.
- "At the time, we all wondered: Are we even going to make it?" she said.
- But PIEbar was "a hit right away," and because empanadas were packaged to go and there was little person-to-person contact, it was able to thrive amid the pandemic. Since then, "we've grown and grown."
Zoom in: PIEbar's origins go back decades, when an 18-year-old Brennan moved to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, for a hotel job.
- Brennan spent six years in Mexico, where she fell in love with empanadas — thanks to a woman who sold two trays a day starting at 6am. Miss that window and you were out of luck by 6:30am.
- The key to re-creating the empanadas was perfecting the dough, along with the red and green chili recipes. "We nailed it," Brennan said.
What she's saying: "They're such a comfort food, this kind of warm hand-held. I don't know why they cause such a kind and sweet feeling in people, but we get a lot of people popping their head back in, filled with gratitude and happiness," Brennan said.
- This is Brennan's third restaurant, "and it's by far the sweetest," she said.
Between the lines: If you're looking for recommendations, they're right there on the menu — empanadas are listed in order of popularity.
- The top sellers on the savory side are the Mountain Man, made with sausage, potatoes, gravy and cheese; chicken pot pie; and the Mountain Mamma, with spinach, garlic, mushrooms, bacon, Parmesan and red pepper flakes.
- On the sweet side, customers gravitate toward the apple dulce de leche, lemon bar and peach.
- Brennan's personal favorites are the Mountain Mamma, the artichoke dip and the pineapple upside-down.
My thought bubble: I discovered PIEbar during a recent family trip to Strawberry and Pine, and I'm hooked.
- My favorites were the Mountain Man, which was a spicy breakfast treat; the picadillo beef, which includes onions, potatoes, green chiles and cilantro; and the bananas Foster.
- Don't forget the sauces! PIEbar's chimichurri can't be beat.
The intrigue: They don't make their own pies and carry them really only because some people come in looking for traditional pies and Brennan didn't want them to leave disappointed.