Eat Arkansas

Somehow, until today, it had escaped me that Hunkapie had opened in the River Market. The new pie shop offers some 18 variations and promises additions weekly.  When I was just there, they had strawberry cream cheese, strawberry, French apple, Key lime, Southern pecan, lemon ice box, shoo-fly pie, cherry, velvet lips chocolate pie, banana cream, peach crumb, lemon chess, rhubarb, rhubarb custard, pumpkin, blueberry, coconut cream and sweet potato.

I picked up strawberry, Key lime and cherry and brought them back to the office. That's cherry and Key lime above. Somebody nabbed the strawberry before I could snap the picture. Mmmmm, good pies, all around.

Hunka is an extension of Coast Cafe (in fact, if you use a credit card, pie-man Chris Monroe will run across the way to Coast to run it), and they're looking to add soup, sandwiches and breakfast items that'll be unique to Hunka in the not-too-distant future.

By slice, the pie goes for $3.25. A whole pie will run you $17.50. I thought that was a pretty high premium for pie, so I called around to get a sense of the local pie market. Here's the breakdown:

Old standby Community Bakery sells whole fruit pies for $5.95 and pecan pies for $7.95.

Silvek's, somewhat shockingly, only sells pecan pie and pumpkin by special order. They sell for $9.99 and $8.99, respectively.

Benton's Ed & Kay's, home of the "mile-high meringue" sells theirs for $14.50.

Charlotte's Eats and Sweets in Keo, another pie-to-drive-for spot, offers a discount for 24-hour notice. Those pies go for $18.00, while over-the-counter ones sell for $21.00.

Other go-to pie-spots I'm missing?