Vi's For Pies

Ordinarily, Vi's for Pies does pretty brisk business come the holidays, especially around Thanksgiving. But Eugene Fedorkiw, the shop's general manager, didn't anticipate the baking bonanza that awaited him a few years ago when March 14 rolled around.

To the uninitiated, March 14 is when Pi Day takes place – given that 3.14 (as in the third month and the 14th day) is the numerical value of Pi, the magical formula used to calculate sizes of circles, cylinders and spheres. "I think maybe five or six years ago, we started getting calls from people asking what we were doing for Pi Day," Eugene says. "None of us had heard of it. But since then, sales have grown exponentially – it's just caught on."

While the notion of a holiday based on a mathematical formula still sounds novel to Eugene, he's also pretty hard-pressed to decide which pies are the biggest sellers. Sometimes, it's the key lime pie. On other occasions, it's apple, banana cream or strawberry and rhubarb. Then, there's the in-house Big Elvis creation, made from banana custard, chocolate, bacon and marshmallow. "It's a take on some sandwich that Elvis used to like," Eugene says.