The scene above might be in my top 10 Marshall moments from How I Met Your Mother because not only do I love charts, but I also really love pies. I don’t know why I ever bother telling people that I love pies because I’m pretty sure we all love pies so that’s just a given. Right?

I can’t imagine what you don’t love about a delicious baked pastry with fruit and things in the middle that you are encouraged to eat with a side of ice cream.

This whole preamble was to get you excited for the fact that Waterloo has a new pie cafe! Spoiler alert, a pie cafe is deliciously amazing.

If you’re walking through The Atrium in Uptown Waterloo you’re probably going to be drawn into Just Love Pie because of the smell of fresh pies being baked constantly. In case you’re like most students and have no idea of where The Atrium is, it is the building on Erb St. that’s across the parking lot from the Beertown in Waterloo Square. I have their address at the end of this post in case none of those landmarks have any meaning to you!

The space itself is bright, cozy, and did I already mention the constant smell of pies?

What really excited me was the fact that they have both sweet and savoury pies on the menu which makes a lot of sense seeing as how Just Love Pie’s run by the same people who own the Sweet and Savoury Pie Company in Waterloo. The menu on their website I believe includes all the pie options that they ever make but they also post their daily fresh pie selections on their Facebook page. I’ve had the Steak and Guinness meat pie and bites of the butter chicken pie when Jill brought it home. Both were super good with a nice proportion of filling to crust.

I think I’ve discussed my deep love for butter tarts on this blog before (also I only recently found out that butter tarts are a p. Canadian thing and I don’t think I’ve ever considered any of my eating habits to be overly ‘Canadian’) but they’re pretty yummy here as well. They have variations like pecan and Skor bar! Occasionally they get inventive and we get blessed with key lime tarts as well (the bottom tart in the picture on the right).

There’s also salads and drinks on the menu if you don’t feel like only having pie (though when does that even happen?). Their coffee is good and the staff comes around frequently to see if you need a refill. I went with a friend for a study date and he reports that the (homemade not packet) hot chocolate was also delicious. Specifically what he said was “sweet but not too sweet, very full chocolate flavour, whip cream particularly satisfying.”

In terms of study location Just Love Pie has comfy seats, a decent amount of seating, outlets, and WiFi (of course!). The WiFi password is on their menu wall but is also justlovepie.

The decoration in here is ridiculous adorable – there’s a record player that the staff are always using and a side table made from a guitar case. If you walk in while it’s sunny out, their sassy window decal casts a shadow on the floor which I enjoyed way too much.

They also post cute little riddles on Facebook about types of pies and you’re encouraged to guess which pie they’re talking about. They then do a draw of all the correct answers and the winner gets that pie as their prize! Full disclosure – I’ve won one of the pies at the time of writing this post but I promise I had visited long before the pie winning and had already added it to my list of drafts. (The pie was raspberry and it was so good.)

On Wednesday we wear pink, but also go to the pie cafe because there’s a student deal which I have yet to try but it looks like a pretty solid meal for only $9.

I hope this place sticks around because we need more study places that have food options beyond cookies. Not to mention – pie.

Next on my Spotlights series: word on the (University) avenue is that the Waterloo location of Balzacs is now open. Okay fine, the word has been confirmed – I’m actually sitting in it as I finish writing this post.

LOCATION

33 Erb St W. (in the Atrium)
Waterloo, ON

HOURS

Mon – Thurs:  11am – 7pm
Friday: 10am – 7pm
Saturday:  9am – 5pm
Sunday:  Closed