All The Things I Eat

Food, Restaurants, and History


Eating at Pies -n- Thighs: Still Pretty Good

By on Monday, January 27th, 2025 at 5:38 pm

Pies -n- Thighs sign painted on the window out front

Pies -n- Thighs is an icon of early 21st century Brooklyn, a destination that regularly made best of lists, and that largely deserved the accolades. For years, especially in the summer months, getting a table meant waiting an hour or two on a list. It was a hot spot, a hipster foodie wonderland, and someplace I’ve eaten at many times before.

The first iteration of the restaurant opened in 2006 attached to Rock Star Bar,
a kind of institution of the early 2000s north Brooklyn scene. I had been there a couple of times, but never thought it that memorable. It was, at best, a grimey dive bar, the kind of place I normally enjoyed, but in my memory it wasn’t cheap enough to really be a dive. Like most of the venerable institutions of the era, it was eventually replaced by new development, in this case one of the strangest (or ugliest?) buildings in the neighborhood.

The Board of Health shut down the restaurant two years after opening. The kitchen was reportedly too small for the kind of work founders Sarah Buck and Steven Tanner were trying to pull off. Plus, it was a grimy dive bar. At the time they were better known for pulled pork sandwiches rather than biscuits, and then Rock Star Bar took over their kitchen to serve burgers.

Pies -n- Thighs opened a small dining room at Driggs and South 4th.

The exterior of Pies -n- Thighs with tables. When it first opened, the community board objected to having benches outside where people could sit while they waited for a table

The next iteration of Pies -n- Thighs opened in 2010 on Driggs and South 4th in Williamsburg. Back then, this area very much felt like the edge of the world. Most of the waterfront on the south side was yet to be developed. The land literally lay fallow, abandoned, and deteriorating. The waterfront itself was impossible to access, locked off from the city by private fences and derelict industry. The retail strip on Bedford Ave really didn’t extend south of Grand Street, and Driggs still mostly residential. Today, though, the location is very much in the heart of gentrified Williamsburg, and with the opening of the Domino Sugar redevelopment, South 4th is a kind of gateway to the area.

The success of Pies -n- Thighs can almost certainly be attributed to the hot chicken biscuit sandwich. The fried chicken topped with butter and hot sauce on a flake biscuit helped usher in a golden age of fried chicken sandwiches in the city.

The fried chicken renaissance Pies -n- Thighs Buck and Tanner created was in part due to the use of brine for the chicken. Poultry brining isn’t a new technique, but apparently nobody was doing it in the 2000s, and then suddenly it was the only way to make chicken or turkey. Helping to spread the gospel of fried chicken sandwiches, Tanner started his own project with similar chicken biscuits, launching the Commodore, a few blocks northeast of Pies -n- Thighs.

The biscuits had always been a highlight of Pies -n- Thighs. In part I suspect this is because New York had dearth of biscuits. Historically, northerners were bad at biscuit making, in part because they were more likely to use flour milled from winter wheat, which has a higher protein level. But the biscuits Pies -n- Thighs cooked up became a signature item. Amazingly, many of these biscuits were rolled out by Bad Girls Club founder, Alison Roman, who spent 8 hours a day making them before landing a job recipe testing at Bon Appetit.

The new restaurant did well and had lines to prove it. I quickly learned that it was much easier to eat there midweek – all that bridge and tunnel from Manhattan coming out to Brooklyn on the weekends made it impossible to get a table, especially at brunch. I’ve had the chicken and waffles, and it was fine, but then you realize you aren’t eating a biscuit, and it’s kind of like, what’s the point? There are other baked goods like donuts and things too, and the cinnamon rolls which are all big sugar bombs. I come for the chicken biscuit.

In 2015, Pies -n- Thighs did the classic Williamsburg-restaurant thing and opened a Manhattan location on Canal Street. It was either ahead of its time, or just the wrong type of food for the spot because a year later the second location closed. They menu had some additions like chicken soup and chicken dumplings, but was more or less a copy of the Williamsburg spot, with a slightly more spacious dining room.

***

This Sunday was the first warm-ish day in two weeks. We forced our three-year-old into his stroller for a walk, and after romping around the mushroom playground we continued on to the waterfront. We were standing across the street from Pies -n- Thighs when we realized two things: we were hungry, and there wasn’t a line.

We walked right into the last table. We plugged our toddler into his Kindle, pre-loaded with Bluey games, and got to ordering.

The Chicken biscuit at Pies -n- thighs has hot sauce and butter and is flaky

The chicken biscuit has still got it

Obviously I ordered a chicken biscuit. So did my wife. It’s hard to argue someone should order an inferior dish just for the sake of variety.

The chicken biscuit is still delicious, but it’s just not revolutionary anymore. It’s buttery and spicy, and the biscuit holds up to the stress of a fried chicken cutlet. But I do think the sandwich could evolve, perhaps with a little honey, or other sweetness. Sweet hot chicken sandwiches have grown into the norm in recent years, like at the Commodore, where biscuits are served with butter, honey, and hot sauce.

This chicken sandwich is still one of the best, but it’s entering that weird period where it feels a bit dated, while not yet being old enough that it can be a nostalgic throwback. It’s actually a reminder that you can’t go home again–even if the food is the same, the flavors are the same, the conditions that brought you there are different. Fifteen years ago that chicken biscuit sandwich was a marvel, now I’m just trying to get through this meal before the batteries on my toddler’s Kindle run out.

hush puppies with a dill-forward remoulade

Hush puppies in general are always a favorite of mine. In New York City, they aren’t always easy to find. Here, they are small spheres creating a good ratio of crispy outside to the dense interior. The remoulade dip they are served with is very dill forward, but what I actually preferred dipping them into maple syrup and melted butter with a bit of hot sauce.

Mac and cheese at Pies -n- thighs

The cheese sauce was thinner than I remember it.

We ordered mac and cheese as a side. The mac and cheese had a thin, wet cheese sauce–thinner than I remember it, and less creamy. But is this just the disconnect between memory and reality? I do like that the mac and cheese is not baked, and there’s no crispy edge, just macaroni and smooth, silky cheese. A slightly thicker cheese sauce, a stronger flavor, or perhaps just a bit more seasoning, would have improved it.

Our three-year-old was tempted at least to sample a single elbow. He said he liked it, but didn’t want more. A few years back when this was a $5 side, it felt like an easy add on. At $8, I would skip it next time. It’s really true, you can’t go home again.

The french fries at pies -n- thighs satisfied our three-year-old

Just to wrap things up, we ordered fries to satisfy the bland palate of a toddler. He liked them. They were fine.

I’m glad to see Pies -n- Thighs is still cooking up delicious chicken biscuits. They may not be setting new trends anymore, but what they did create, they still make well. That’s no small feat, especially given how often restaurants can often flounder after an injection of notoriety and success. I don’t think that’s happening here. I’m a different person now, but the chicken biscuits are eternal.

Pies -n- Thighs

Website
166 S 4th Street, Brooklyn












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