How an Eagle Rock pie maker and her high school sweetheart built their business from humble homemade beginnings

Ann’s mother was a baker, making pies for Ann and her four siblings. When her mother received a cancer diagnosis, Ann made it a point to learn everything she could about her mother’s recipes. When she took a few years off after working 27 years as a paralegal to care for her son’s chronic asthma, Ann began watching every type of cooking and baking show. These humble beginnings snowballed into baking pies for restaurants and teaching baking classes in the Bay Area before opening the shop with Kelley in Eagle Rock.

KnowRealityPies is the only eight-time award winner of KCRW’s Good Food Pie Contest and has been celebrated by the likes of Thrillist and restauranteur David Chang. While most pie shops keep a consistent selection of flavors, Ann is “always experimenting.” She said she has a network of fellow piemakers and food writers that help her workshop ideas, and different tastes around her inspire her. She devised her award-winning triple berry cabernet flavor with a winery near her in the Bay Area and the salted caramel mango rum flavor from a cake competitor at the KCRW competition. 

Despite pandemic challenges, Ann says their following is bigger than ever, and they hope to expand their space soon. They make small batches and hope to be able to offer more of their pies, which sell out quickly. 

And how did the name of their business come about? It’s an ode to her husband’s music — and their relationship. “When we reconnected, he was tasting the pie and said that people don’t know what real pie is, that [I] should call it Know Reality Pie,” she said. “And the name just stuck. It’s a combination of both of us.”