Memphis, TNPie Shops

A Harbor Town restaurant inside The River Inn whose Kahlua pie has been on the menu since the day it opened in Overton Square in 1974, a recipe that began with co-founder Paulette Fono. Servers started calling it the K-Pie, and customers took up the name. The house signature is built high with chocolate, coffee ice cream and Kahlua. The kitchen also keeps its crepes and its popovers with strawberry butter. Order the K-Pie.

The Elvis Presley Boulevard original of the barbecue restaurant Andrew and Rose Pollard opened in 1983, where their son Brian now runs the room. Andrew once made every dessert; today the only ones he still makes himself are the fried pies, and the lineup includes sweet potato. The menu began with pork shoulder, rib tips and smoked sausage, and the kitchen added barbecue spaghetti because it was what Rose liked. Order a sweet potato fried pie.

A Downtown restaurant in connected brick bays on Monroe Avenue, opened in 1997 as what its founder called fine dining in short pants, and home to an iconic banana cream pie. Melissa Thornton, who had owned a bakery, developed the pie from an Emeril Lagasse recipe she made better, and it is still on the menu. The savory side keeps its sea bass with miso broth and soy glaze. Order the banana cream pie.

A Broad Avenue bake shop known for its cupcakes that also bakes from-scratch pies, flaky-crusted and Southern in spirit. In 2012 owner Kat Gordon called pie her favorite thing to make and her favorite thing to eat. The pies share the case with cookies, cakes and puddings. Order a slice of whatever pie is in the case.

The Central Avenue restaurant of a Memphis barbecue group, where dessert is a peanut butter pie, dense and cheesecake-like. Ahead of it, the pork barbecue nachos make a full meal, marinated and slow-smoked pork piled over a heaping bed of chips with cheese sauce, shredded cheese and jalapeños, messy enough to leave hands covered in sauce. Order the nachos, then the peanut butter pie.