Pie Time is a welcome addition to Patterson Park’s neighborhood scene, with plenty of old-school touches
The unmistakable smell of something tasty is evident at the corner of East Baltimore Street and Ellwood Avenue near Patterson Park. A classic corner store’s new sign proclaims it Pie Time, while the hexagonal tiles in its entrance say “Let’s Get Pie.”
This Baltimore neighborhood’s latest enterprise pays homage to the bakeries of the 1930s. While it has tile floors, marble and wood counters and an amazing tin ceiling, it also has a steaming Victoria Arduino espresso coffee machine.
Max Reim, Pie Time’s owner, spent nearly two years overseeing the transformation of a corner grocery into his palace of pies. He gutted the place, changed the level of the floors, raised the ceiling levels and created more space for his basement baking laboratory. There’s a dumbwaiter to hoist his baked goods to the sales floor. His countertop is repurposed Douglas fir from the Melvale Distillery’s rye whiskey tanks.
He notes with pride that his Vulcan oven was built in Dundalk. He made his shop’s light fixtures from old wood fruit crates.
“When the opportunity presented itself to preserve the corner as retail, I really wanted to take it," Reim said. “So many of the old corner stores are now residences.”
Reim and his wife, Louise Opel, live four blocks away, at Linwood Avenue and Fayette Street.
The shop fits neatly into the grid of East Baltimore streets around the park, where in the last four decades hundreds of rowhouses have been refurbished to create a stable and resilient community.
“The coolest thing around Patterson Park is how diverse it is,” he said. “The surrounding blocks have really supported us. We are in between the two Hopkins communities, in East Baltimore and at Bayview,” Reim said. “I open at 6 a.m. Wednesdays so the workers can get their coffee and go on to work.”
Reim just got his business headquarters open and it is a work in progress. He sells coffee and pies at the downtown and 32nd Street Waverly farmers' markets on weekends, and opens this pie shop (for now) on Wednesdays.
“We will be adding hours and days as we adjust to the space and add staff,” he said.
Max Reim, owner of Pie Time","type":"text
Reim grew up in Roland Park and attended Friends School before graduating from Hampshire College in Western Massachusetts. It was there he found his calling in food and restaurant work. He’s been a line cook at the Swallow at the Hollow in Belvedere Square and some now-closed but well-remembered places, including Nickel Taphouse in Mount Washington, Loco Hombre in Evergreen-Roland Park and the Corner BYOB in Hampden.
Reim grew up in Roland Park and attended Friends School before graduating from Hampshire College in Western Massachusetts. It was there he found his calling in food and restaurant work. He’s been a line cook at the Swallow at the Hollow in Belvedere Square and some now-closed but well-remembered places, including Nickel Taphouse in Mount Washington, Loco Hombre in Evergreen-Roland Park and the Corner BYOB in Hampden.
He’s is a believer in the region’s fresh produce. He’s been slow roasting pumpkins from Pahls Farm in Woodstock and adds milk and cream from Frederick County’s South Mountain Creamery. His apples and pears and other fruits are from Reid’s Orchard.
“I use my mother’s pie crust recipe,” he said, explaining that it “has a shortbread thing going on and is made with canola oil. We use some salt that brings out the sweetness of the fruit.”
Pie Time’s savory offerings — such as chicken pot pies, duck confit gumbo, mushroom Bourguignon and beef carbonnade made with Guinness beer — “have been flying out of here,” he said.
He realizes he has competition — Dangerously Delicious Pies is based in nearby Canton and there are no scarcity of coffee shops in the area. But customers appreciate the neighborhood’s newest addition.
“Our neighborhood has been very anxious for Max to get up and running,” said Mark Supik, an East Pratt Street resident. “We can use him.”
“I like the baking scene in Baltimore. It’s great to have a place that is getting away from the corn syrup-based cupcake.”
———
©2020 The Baltimore Sun
Visit The Baltimore Sun at www.baltimoresun.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
