The pie that ate the Sky
Pie in the Sky calls it quits after nearly four decades, but the resort, cabins, store, boats, grill and scenery remain.
There is no more Pie in the Sky. The Rock Creek Lakes Resort is still open, it has the grill, cabins, store, and boats for rent like always, there’s just no more pie. Some people didn’t know there was anything else up there.
People would come up for the pie, just the pie, and would write a bad Yelp review if they didn’t get it, according to one resort employee who is a little happier these days. They’re happy because pie is no longer running the show, and they’re not having to work dozens of hours a day, seven days a week with the line of pie lovers never seeming to get any shorter. The pies went from novelty item to curse after several Sunset Magazine articles and then social media got ahold of some slices and the dessert went viral, said baker, pie lady and resort co-owner Sue King.
The pie had become larger than life, outgrowing the tiny century-old building located next to Rock Creek Lake. It was getting so big it was blocking the views. Fewer and fewer people even noticed the lake or the Sierra skyline. The few that did notice wouldn’t come inside the café anymore, the lines were too long. The pie was eating the resort.
King called it a “hostile takeover.”
It started with a couple of pies a day with time left over for cards on the deck in the afternoon. That was 37 years ago. For the past decade though, King was working 14 hours a day, baking up to 40 pies, with only six at a time coming from the small ovens. That’s more than 3,000 pies a season from June 1 to Columbus Day, King said.
King talked to The Sheet at the resort on May 5, one of the first quiet Sundays she’d had in decades. Dona and Harry Readers and Frank and Lela Colby, who owned the place from 1940-1978, had made pies, but, King said, they “used canned filling.” She said those three words like she was swearing in church. She looked around to see if anyone was listening.
