Birmingham, ALPie Shops

JaWanda Jackson learned to make sweet potato pie soon after she married, because it was her husband's favorite dessert, sold it at farmers markets, and in 2015 opened this bakery in the Inverness Village shopping center on Valleydale Road. The menu is built on that one pie: fifteen sweet potato flavors, from the original to pecan, orange cream cheese and s'mores, as individual mini pies or whole pies, beside her mother's peach cobbler. The shop closes for a winter break from Christmas Eve into early February. Order the original and a pecan sweet potato.

Niki's West is a cafeteria-style restaurant on Finley Avenue whose line carries a dozen or so desserts a day, with a wide selection of freshly made pies among them. The flavors change from day to day and include creamy coconut, tart and sweet lemon icebox, and chocolate piled high with meringue. The line does not wait for anyone, so settle on a slice before reaching the desserts. Order whichever of the coconut, lemon icebox or chocolate meringue is on the line that day.

The Bright Star has served Bessemer for decades, and the pies on its dessert menu are made fresh daily and sold by the slice or whole. The flavors run from chocolate almond and pineapple cheese to coconut cream and peanut butter, and the creamy lemon ice box pie is the one diners order most. Order a slice of the lemon ice box after a meal in downtown Bessemer, or take a whole pie home.

Miss Myra's has been a Cahaba Heights barbecue restaurant for more than 40 years, and it is a barbecue joint where the homemade pie is worth a slice after the meal. Whole handcrafted pies and single slices are both on offer, in flavors that include chocolate chess, pecan, peanut butter, chocolate cream and key lime. Order a slice of the chocolate chess with a plate of barbecue, and take a whole pecan pie home.