PHOTOS BY LAURA PETRILLA

“Do you like to get pie after you see a good movie?”

This is the question Patricia Arquette asks Christian Slater in the 1993 film “True Romance,” and I’ve adopted it as my own litmus test to determine if I’m compatible with someone or not.

If you don’t like to get pie after you see a good (or bad) movie, we can’t be friends. Cake has cornered the market on birthdays, but pie is ageless and — in my opinion — the star of the dessert show.

Here are five go-to sources for grabbing great, locally made pies — whether you’re wrapping up the evening after a film or planning or a big event.

Eat’n Park

My favorite season is fall, but I love to usher in summer with a song. If you know the words (and I know you do!), please sing along:

In the merry, berry month of May
There’s a deal at Eat’n Park every day
On berry sundaes, berry cakes, berry pies and berry shakes
In the merry, berry month
The merry, berry month
The merry, berry month of May!

That jingle’s been implanted in Pittsburgh’s collective ear since 1980, but Eat’n Park’s been dishing out its signature strawberry pie for 71 years. In fact, the original recipe was developed by Claire Moore, daughter of company founder Larry Hatch.

To this day, Eat’n Park’s strawberry pie features two pints of fresh strawberries. From late April through Labor Day, yinz can stop in at one of Eat’n Park’s 56 locations until 11 p.m. to grab a slice.

In the ’60s, the restaurant chain was one of the first in the country to have its fruit delivered via air freight from Plant City, Florida, so strawberry pie could be served throughout the winter. (The Great Pumpkin steps in every autumn to fill the gap.)

Other Eat’n Park pie offerings, baked fresh at each site, include apple, Dutch apple, blackberry, peachberry, lemon meringue, cookies and cream, chocolate crème and coconut crème.

Although strawberry is seasonal, it remains the most popular slice and whole pie on the menu. The dessert, like the jingle, is addictive.

Multiple locations

Sidecar

PHOTO BY LAURA PETRILLA

Times are tough. Thankfully, Sidecar on North Craig Street in Oakland makes a delicious “desperation” dessert!

Butterjoint’s neighboring coffee and bake shop’s biggest seller is vinegar pie. In a town that likes to pickle everything, the name shouldn’t be a deterrent. I mean, it’s still pie.

Pastry Chef Robin Cumpston, who also specializes in other nostalgic sweets such as apple Pop Tarts, apple hand pies and oatmeal cream pies, says it’s a simple thing to make, requiring just a handful of ingredients that even the most incompetent of home chefs (like me!) have on hand.

It was a popular and economical treat during the Great Depression, when fresh fruit was scarce. Vinegar is meant to mimic the tartness of apples or lemons.

And, you know what, it totally fooled me!

The look and consistency is similar to pecan pie, and Sidecar’s housemade sour-cream crust gives it an extra-tangy kick. Make your ancestors proud and order a slice.

North Oakland, 200 N. Craig St.

Soergel Orchards

PHOTO BY LAURA PETRILLA

Soergel Orchards’ apple pie ranks right up there with my mom’s. I’ve been visiting the North Hills farm my entire life, so we’re practically related anyway.

German immigrant John Conrad Soergel began planting apple trees on the site in 1850. This family knows a thing or two about the fruit.

Whether I’m at the farm to purchase spring flowers, pick out a Halloween pumpkin or play with goats at the petting zoo, a trip to Soergel’s always involves a stop at the full-scale bakery, which debuted in 1987.

My appetite changes with the seasons.

In addition to its core of apple-based pies (classic, apple-cranberry, apple-walnut, Dutch apple and sugar-free apple), the business offers blackberry, blueberry, cherry, coconut cream, French silk, lemon meringue, mince, peach, peach-blueberry, peach-praline, pecan, pumpkin, red raspberry, strawberry-rhubarb and very berry.

I swear the air inside the bakery has a calorie content.

Franklin Park, 2573 Brandt School Road

Fat Butcher

PHOTO BY LAURA PETRILLA

I’m not getting sweeter with age — and the same can be said for my taste in pie.

Fat Butcher in Lawrenceville is my source for all things savory. James Griffin, a veteran cook who joined the crew last February to run the butcher shop’s stellar sandwich bar, likes to experiment with different meat and pastry combinations in his spare time.

I’m glad he chose this hobby because it benefits local carnivores.

Griffin has put his own spin on U.K. favorites such as Cornish pasties and British pork pies, as well as Jamaican beef patties that sell out as soon as they hit the takeout freezer.

The mixture of ground beef, habanero pepper, ginger, garlic scallion, onion, soy sauce, ketchup, brown sugar, paprika, salt, pepper, allspice, cinnamon, thyme and olive oil is sealed in a dough made from flour, butter, sugar, beef tallow and Jamaican curry powder. This hand pie is a powder keg of flavor.

Another Frankensteined dish is the Beef on Weckington, a cross between Beef Wellington, a staple of English cuisine, and Beef on Weck, a sandwich made famous in New York state. I don’t need a birthday cake for my 47th; just stick a candle in one of these.

Lawrenceville, 5151 Butler St.

Page’s

PHOTO BY LAURA PETRILLA

Cake and ice cream go together like black and gold, but Page’s Dairy Mart has just as much love for pie.

The beloved business, which this year is closing in mid-October — earlier than usual — for building maintenance, introduced ice cream pies in 2024 — and they sold like hot cakes. If you managed to snag and freeze one for Thanksgiving, be extra thankful.

The rest of yinz will have to wait until 2026, Page’s 75th anniversary season.

The 9-inch pies begin with the company’s rich vanilla ice cream that’s blended with either housemade pumpkin or apple butter from Triple B Farms in Monongahela. The mixture is put into a graham-cracker-crust pie mold and topped with the shop’s signature whipped vanilla “Bettercream” icing and then drizzled with caramel.

One bite is worth the brainfreeze.

South Side, 4112 E. Carson St.