The chicken-fried drought is over! Pies ’n’ Thighs — Williamsburg’s beloved Southern food and barbecue joint — reopened on Monday.
It wasn’t the recession that denied us our biscuits and gravy for the last two years, but a bureaucratic scuffle with the Buildings Department that finally ended this week, paving the way for a new Pies ’n’ Thighs on S. Fourth Street and Driggs Avenue, just a few blocks from where the restaurant got its start in a makeshift kitchen behind the divey Rock Star Bar.
Co-owner Erika Geldzahler said that while no one camped out, the restaurant was already buzzing when it opened its doors 8 am.
“New York had no good Southern food until Pies ’n’ Thighs,” said Atlanta-raised Williamsburg resident Jeremy Parker, 24. “Of course, I had to be here on opening day.”
Geldzahler said regulars could expect all the classics, plus some new — and equally mind-blowing — items like shrimp and grits, brisket, and baked goods by co-owner Sarah Buck.
But Geldzahler insists one of the best upgrades is the fridge.
“In the first location, we were operating out of coke cooler,” she said.
So far, so good. But when — make that if — the highly anticipated/massively delayed Fatty ’Cue opens a mere four blocks away, we’ll have a serious BBQ war on our hands.
Pies ’n’ Thighs [166 S. Fourth St. at Driggs Avenue (347) 529-6090].
