It's been 20 years since Sarah Sanneh helped open the original Pies 'n' Thighs, located in a beer storage closet tucked under the Brooklyn side of the Williamsburg Bridge. As befitted the neighborhood's rogue artist/hipster "Willy B" era (see Ronen Givony's sprawling, mostly enthralling "Us v. Them" for lots on the music scene here during that time), the place was as DIY as it gets, complete with an illegal pork smoker out on the concrete slab that doubled as a dining room. The food was delicious, the crowd scruffy and hot, the soundtrack cool as hell. It was glorious.
But two decades is a long time, and, thank god, we grow and change. Pies moved to the corner Driggs and South 4th in 2008 after getting ousted by the Department of Health ("a bigger, better, more miraculous hole in the wall!" is how the team hyped it at the time). There was also a short-lived version of the restaurant in the then-nascent Dimes Square, plus ownership changes, life changes, rave reviews, countless accolades—and, as of last week, a bright, spacious, even family-friendly new Pies 'n' Thighs on the Park Slope side of Flatbush Avenue.
"What I imagined [in 2006] was just making a hang for my friends," Sanneh told Hell Gate. "We were all sort of just cooking food for each other, back when Williamsburg felt like trading goods, not running businesses. Just seeing all the same faces every day, feeling like a part of a community."
"I still feel that way at the Driggs Pies," she continued, "and even here on our third day on Flatbush, there are so many people that know us really well, and are excited that we came to their neighborhood. But I had absolutely no idea that any of this would happen 20 years ago, and I am beyond thrilled. We've had so many lives at Pies 'n' Thighs."
