One of Toronto’s most beloved pie shops started on the TTC
As Wanda Beaver boarded the subway before class in the mid-1980s, she gripped a carrying case with three slats — each filled with a pie destined for a restaurant in downtown Toronto.
At the time, Beaver was baking pies as a side hustle while studying graphic design at OCAD University. But what started off as a temporary operation evolved into Wanda’s Pie in the Sky — a more than three-decade pursuit and Kensington Market staple.
Wanda's Pie in the Sky is located in Kensington Market, where the establishment found its forever home in 2007. (CTV News/ Hannah Alberga)
“It just took over,” Beaver told CTV News Toronto.
Before Beaver became a nomad delivering pies on the TTC, she picked cherries, apples, pears, peaches, raspberries and rhubarb from her backyard in St. Catharines, Ont.
At nine-years-old, Beaver packaged cherries into her first buttery pie crust.
In the late 80s, Beaver’s wholesale bakery, which she was running out of a stone oven that could only fit six pies at a time, graduated to an industrial space in the Junction, which later moved to Etobicoke and Yorkville
Finally in 2007, Wanda’s found its “forever home,” as Beaver put it, after signing her second 10-year lease at the corner of Augusta Avenue and Oxford Street, right in the nook of the neighbourhood.
“Kensington to me is the heart of the city,” she said.
Wanda's Pie in the Sky is located in Kensington Market, where the establishment found its forever home in 2007. (CTV News/ Hannah Alberga)By the time Wanda’s settled into Kensington, the business had leaped from a wholesale operation into a customer-facing cafe selling slices of pie, seasonal soups, quiches, pierogis and grilled cheese.
But still, the beating heart of the business remained sour cherry, strawberry-rhubarb, coconut cream, pecan and key lime pies — a sweet retreat for Torontonians, specifically over the last nearly two-years.
Wanda's Pie in the Sky is located in Kensington Market, where the establishment found its forever home in 2007. (CTV News/ Hannah Alberga)
“The pie is a comfort food,” Beaver said. “If anything, people have needed more of that.”
This past Thanksgiving, Wanda’s sold 2,500 pies — primarily apple and pumpkin — and already, the team is mentally preparing for the holiday rush come December.
Wanda's Pie in the Sky is located in Kensington Market, where the establishment found its forever home in 2007. (CTV News/ Hannah Alberga)
“We want the experience of coming in here to be like a warm blanket,” Beaver said. While she never professionally pursued graphic design, the cafe’s atmosphere — aqua painted walls, yellow lamp shades dangling from the ceiling and multi-coloured high top stools — truly captures that vision.
“If a [customer] has any stress coming in with them, we want to disarm them with the atmosphere that we have here.”
ABOUT TABLE TALK
Table Talk is a weekly CTV News Toronto series that explores the people who shape Toronto’s food scene, published every Friday at CTVNewsToronto.ca.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Quebec nurse had to clean up after husband's death in Montreal hospital
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
Cuban government apologizes to Montreal-area family after delivering wrong body
Cuba's foreign affairs minister has apologized to a Montreal-area family after they were sent the wrong body following the death of a loved one.
What is changing about Canada's capital gains tax and how does it impact me?
The federal government's proposed change to capital gains taxation is expected to increase taxes on investments and mainly affect wealthy Canadians and businesses. Here's what you need to know about the move.
'Anything to win': Trudeau says as Poilievre defends meeting protesters
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is accusing Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre of welcoming 'the support of conspiracy theorists and extremists,' after the Conservative leader was photographed meeting with protesters, which his office has defended.
Northern Ont. lawyer who abandoned clients in child protection cases disbarred
A North Bay, Ont., lawyer who abandoned 15 clients – many of them child protection cases – has lost his licence to practise law.
Boeing's financial woes continue, while families of crash victims urge U.S. to prosecute the company
Boeing said Wednesday that it lost US$355 million on falling revenue in the first quarter, another sign of the crisis gripping the aircraft manufacturer as it faces increasing scrutiny over the safety of its planes and accusations of shoddy work from a growing number of whistleblowers.
Bank of Canada officials split on when to start cutting interest rates
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
Fair in Ontario, flurries in Labrador: Weather systems make for an erratic spring
"It's a bit of a complicated pattern; we've got a lot going on," said Jennifer Smith of the Meteorological Service of Canada in an interview with CTVNews.ca on Wednesday. "[As is] typical with weather, all of these things are related."
Police tangle with students in Texas and California as wave of campus protest against Gaza war grows
Police tangled with student demonstrators in Texas and California while new encampments sprouted Wednesday at Harvard and other colleges as school leaders sought ways to defuse a growing wave of pro-Palestinian protests.