RESTAURANTS + BARS

Detroit’s Dangerously Delicious Pies closes temporarily

Melody Baetens
The Detroit News

The owner of Dangerously Delicious Pies, makers of double-crust sweet and savory pies and quiches, has closed his Midtown and Wyandotte locations.

The Midtown cafe, 70 W. Alexandrine on the ground floor of the Strathmore Apartments, will reopen hopefully around Labor Day, says owner Rodney Henry. As for the Wyandotte restaurant that debuted last summer at 2909 Biddle, Henry says “it’s not 100 percent” sure that it will reopen.

“It looks like we’re closing,” he said, adding that he felt supported by Downriver community. He has a baking facility in River Rouge and may turn that into retail space in the future.

Henry said he wasn’t satisfied with how his Detroit shops were being run, so he relocated to the area to see that his business here is managed the way he would like. He has four other Dangerously Delicious Pies locations in Baltimore and Washington, D.C., which he says “work out great.”

“I’m psyched to be up here helping out, taking it over,” he said, adding that he’s looking for new employees and will maybe keep only two of his current staff members going forward.

Henry plans to put a fresh coat of paint on the Midtown cafe and, when he reopens, to offer live music and more than the eight or so pies they had available.

“We don’t have eight pies, we have a ton of them,” he said.

His Baltimore location’s menu lists more than 40 pies and quiches.

The rock ‘n’ roll pie company came to Detroit after Henry met River Rouge musician Don Duprie at the South by Southwest music conference in Texas. Duprie was helping Henry run his Detroit outposts for years, since they started their local operation out of the Comet Bar, a Cass Corridor favorite that was shuttered in 2014 to make way for the Little Caesars Arena. They later nested operations inside Third Street Bar at Third and West Forest up until last year.

Henry said Duprie recently had to move onto other obligations, but that the two of them are “cool” and that Duprie still helps out “here and there.”

Henry says he wants to make his Detroit pie shops “better for everybody.”

“You have to enjoy yourself,” he said. “Everything has to be fun and top notch.”

mbaetens@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @melodybaetens