House of Pies, the prequel and the sequel

Here's a bit more intelligence on the House of Pies, the Los Feliz survivor that attracted some appreciative attention recently from a blogger at The Paris Review. Before Aaron Gilbreath got there with his embrace, Jim Thurman covered much of the same ground for the LA Weekly last summer. From Thurman's piece:

If you've given a thought to the House of Pies, the longtime coffee shop and restaurant at the corner of Vermont and Franklin in Los Feliz, chances are its either been in contemplation of a piece of pie or noticing the unusual architecture. There was a short period when the distinctive, angular, cottage inspired buildings popped up not only around Los Angeles, but nationwide. Behind them was the same man who founded a restaurant chain that survives to this day....

The HOP boasted a menu of more than 60 varieties of pies, a selection even Evan Kleiman would have been impressed with. Further complications arose with the arrival of a competitor, Marie Callender's. The two often had locations near each other, and as it turned out, there just wasn't a big enough slice of the American pie to go around.

After we pointed him last to the later article, longtime LA snarkist Richard Rushfield got his hackles up at his new home blogging base, The Native Angeleno.

The Paris Review visited House of Pies.

Isn’t that nice? The Paris Review came to Los Angeles! They tore themselves away from talking about existence with Jean Cocteau and Jean-Paul Sartre to visit little ol’ us. Los Angeles must be getting to be sumptin if the Paris Review is coming to town.