People Who Pie: The Pot Pie Bar

It’s the most wonderful time of the year: pie season. Whether you’re seeking one of the classics — perhaps pumpkin, pecan or pot pie — or something a bit more nouveau, these three New Hampshire pie shops will happily serve you a slice.

Here are three places that will make your sweet tooth sing.

• Slightly Crooked Pies, Bedford
• The Pot Pie Bar, Bedford (profile below)
• Woodstock Pie and Coffee, North Woodstock

The Pot Pie Bar, Bedford

The Pot Pie Bar is known for infusing a modern approach to traditional comfort food, like this classic chicken pot pie — perfect for lunch at work or dinner on a chilly fall evening, bringing back memories of grandma’s house.

If you’re looking for a quick and easy weeknight meal, The Pot Pie Bar is here to help. Caroline Arend’s savory pies go straight from frozen to dinner: Since they come in oven-safe packaging, you just take off the lid, pop it on a sheet pan, and put it in the oven for about a half an hour.

The Pot Pie Bar is the sister company to Arend’s other business, Caroline’s Fine Foods, a full-service catering company that also sells prepared meals to go and lunchtime fare like paninis.

During COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020, Arend’s loyal customer base began purchasing meals for first responders in order to support the business and the people on the frontlines of the pandemic. “We found ourselves making crazy amounts of family-style pot pies,” Arend says.

After some recipe development and testing, the team decided to turn the pot pies into a full-on business.

Arend studied business at Boston University, but ultimately decided she didn’t want to get a master’s degree. “I couldn’t take one more accounting class, to be quite honest with you,” she says. “It was awful.” Instead, having worked in the restaurant industry throughout college, she decided to give culinary school a whirl. She worked at a few restaurants in Boston before opening her own catering company to have a little more control over her schedule.

The formal culinary training was a nice way into the industry but, as Arend puts it, “They didn’t teach me how to make pot pie at the Culinary Institute.” She’s self-taught in that regard.

Arend and her team started with the classic chicken pot pie but have since expanded to indulgent offerings like braised short rib, chicken cordon bleu, lobster, and cheeseburger mac ‘n’ cheese pies. “We just started to think of comfort food that would translate well into pot pies,” she says.

Soon, the company will be moving into a larger space: Arend just purchased a restaurant where she hopes to build up a USDA-certified kitchen so they can wholesale the pies.

While technically in a whole new town (Goffstown), loyal customers will be happy to hear the new space is only 10 minutes away from the current location.

“We’ll have a new clientele in addition to our old clientele,” Arend says. “We’re excited for our future home.” thepotpiebar.com