Building Back the Pie Business
October 20, 2026 · Jay De Natale
Here's an honest number. Right now the shop runs about 65% slice, 35% pie. I'd like to get that closer to 50-50.
The slice business tells me something good. People working on this street, people walking by for a quick bite, they're taken care of. The pie business tells me something different. Abbot's lost a lot of that over the years. Full pies, takeaway, delivery for a family dinner or an office lunch or a kid's birthday. That's what I'm rebuilding.
Something surprised me along the way. A lot of our regulars already love this place. They come in for a slice a few times a week, but ordering a whole pie to bring home never occurred to them. We'd become their quick bite, not their dinner plan. It wasn't a trust problem. It just hadn't crossed their mind that the option was there.
A pie is a different kind of trust than a slice. A slice is a quick yes. A pie means someone is trusting me to feed their family, their team, a whole classroom. I want to be the place people think of first for that, and I want to earn it.
So the work has started. I've been walking into the other shops on Abbot Kinney, introducing myself, having coffee, building real relationships with the people running businesses on this street. Not a pitch, just getting to know people and letting them get to know me. There's outbound work too. Emails, calls, putting the shop in front of people who might not think of us yet.
It's slow. It takes time for a name to become a habit, for someone to think LILGUY before the three other places they usually order from. Every relationship on this street, every regular who remembers we deliver, every office that calls us for lunch. That's the business I'm rebuilding. Slice by slice got us here. Pie by pie gets us the rest of the way.
- Jay