There is a particular kind of danger in walking into a New Jersey farm market for “just one pie.” First comes the apple crumb. Then somebody spots blueberry.
Someone else argues that coconut custard counts as an entirely different category, and suddenly the back seat is carrying more dessert than people. That is the appeal of the state’s best pie stops: they turn a simple bakery run into an excuse for a drive.
Some are old-school orchards where apple season borders on a competitive sport. Others are tiny bakeries experimenting with lavender, chess pie, or fruit combinations you probably won’t find at the supermarket.
A few even make savory pies worth saving room for before dessert. From Bergen County down through the Pinelands, these 12 places give pie lovers plenty of reasons to keep a fork handy.
Just remember one rule: when a bakery says its pies sell out, believe it.
1. Delicious Orchards – Colts Neck
Apple pie is serious business at this Colts Neck institution, and the version here is a good place to understand why. Delicious Orchards makes its pies from scratch, including the crust, without additives or preservatives, and the bakery rotates flavors as the seasons change.
The classic apple is made with fresh sliced Ida Red apples, resulting in the sort of straightforward, fruit-first pie that does not need a pile of toppings to make its case. Apple crumb is another easy choice, especially if your ideal pie involves an unapologetically generous layer of buttery crumbs.
The selection stretches well beyond apples. Blueberry, cherry, four berry, strawberry rhubarb, coconut custard and pecan regularly appear, while peach and pumpkin arrive during their respective seasons.
That makes repeat visits dangerously easy to justify. The setting helps, too.
This is a sprawling farm market rather than a tiny bakery counter, so a pie run can quickly turn into a cart filled with produce, prepared foods and baked goods you had no intention of buying. Holiday weeks are a different animal altogether, particularly around Thanksgiving, when certain pies are guaranteed while others depend on availability.
Calling ahead is smart when you have your heart set on a particular flavor. Otherwise, embrace the gamble, walk up to the bakery case and let whatever looks best make the decision for you.
2. The Pie Store – Upper Montclair
There are plenty of places in New Jersey to buy apple pie. There are considerably fewer where you can walk out carrying apple pie in one hand and a steak-and-ale pie in the other.
That is the fun of The Pie Store, a small Upper Montclair bakery devoted to British-style baking since 2006. Its savory side includes shepherd’s pie, chicken and mushroom, cheese-potato-and-onion pies, Cornish pasties and sausage rolls, making this one of the rare stops where pie can comfortably cover lunch and dessert.
For the sweet course, start with the double-crust apple. Depending on the day and season, you may also encounter fruit combinations, Key lime, coconut custard, chocolate mousse or banoffee.
The important thing here is not to arrive expecting an American farm-stand experience. The shelves also carry British groceries, sweets, biscuits, sauces and other imports, so poking around is part of the visit.
The shop sits on Watchung Avenue in Upper Montclair and keeps a relatively compact schedule, including being closed Mondays and operating limited Sunday hours, so this is one destination where checking the day before leaving home can prevent disappointment.
If you are bringing food home for a group, mix sweet and savory instead of ordering one enormous dessert spread. A steak-and-ale pie followed by apple or banoffee makes a much stronger argument for dinner than pretending you stopped in “just for a slice.”
3. Pie Lady Cafe – Moorestown
Crumble lovers may have the hardest time making a decision in Moorestown. The Pie Lady does not simply offer an apple crumble and call the category finished; blueberry, raspberry, strawberry, peach, cherry, wild berry and various fruit combinations can all get the crumb treatment.
That abundance is precisely what makes this Main Street stop so useful when you are buying for a family in which nobody agrees about dessert. Traditional double-crust fruit pies hold their own, too.
Apple, cherry, blueberry, raspberry, peach and strawberry rhubarb are among the familiar choices, while apple-cranberry and apple-blueberry give the classics a small twist without turning pie into a science project.
Most whole pies currently land roughly around the upper-$20s to upper-$30s depending on size and variety, so this is more “bring dessert to dinner” territory than an impulse pastry purchase.
The smart play is to order with the occasion in mind. Pick a crumble if you want something that feels especially homey, go straight fruit if you have purists at the table, or watch for seasonal combinations when you want something less predictable.
There are also scones, muffins, breads and cookies, but pie is clearly not treated as an afterthought here. If a specific flavor matters, ordering ahead beats assuming it will be waiting when you arrive.
Strawberry rhubarb in particular has a habit of disappearing from bakery menus exactly when somebody decides they cannot live without it.
4. Wemrock Orchards – Freehold
Watch closely enough and you can still see the old-fashioned work behind the pies at Wemrock Orchards. Apples are peeled for the apple pies, crusted tops are hand-rolled and hand-crimped, and the bakery says it uses fresh or fresh-frozen fruit without adding preservatives.
Grandma’s recipes remain part of the operation, which fits the straightforward character of the finished pies: familiar flavors, recognizable ingredients and very little interest in unnecessary reinvention. Apple is the obvious starting point, but French apple and apple crumb make compelling alternatives if you like more texture.
Blueberry, cherry, pecan, coconut custard, strawberry rhubarb, peach and blueberry crumb round out the lineup, and there are no-sugar-added apple and peach versions as well.
Wemrock even sells some pies frozen and unbaked, complete with baking directions, a clever option if you want your kitchen to smell suspiciously impressive just before guests arrive.
The Country Store at 100 Wemrock Road gives the trip more purpose than a bakery pickup alone, with produce, baked goods and other farm-market finds under the same roof. Current store hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, though special-event and holiday schedules are always worth confirming.
Orders are encouraged for pies, and that advice becomes especially valuable near holidays. Freehold locals may be able to gamble on walking in. Everyone driving an hour for strawberry rhubarb should probably use the phone first.
5. Battleview Orchards – Freehold
If you think one Freehold orchard should be enough for any reasonable pie crawl, Battleview makes a strong case for unreasonable behavior. Its Country Store sits just down the road from Wemrock, turning this corner of Monmouth County into an unusually efficient place to compare bakery boxes.
Battleview’s everyday lineup includes apple, Dutch apple, blueberry crumb, cherry crumb, coconut custard, peach, Very Berry and a no-sugar-added apple pie. Then the seasonal menu starts causing trouble.
Fall can bring apple-cranberry, pecan, pumpkin and sweet potato, while warmer months open the door to cherry lattice, peach Melba, peach crumb, peach praline, rhubarb and strawberry varieties. Lemon Krunch is another name worth remembering when you want something brighter than the standard orchard lineup.
The Country Store is open year-round and also sells fresh breads, muffins, scones, cookies and Battleview’s cider donuts. The orchard presses its own apple cider, which is typically available from mid-September into spring, giving you the makings of an aggressively autumnal snack whether the temperature cooperates or not.
Practical note: the store is closed Tuesdays. Current hours run 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. from May through December and an hour shorter from January through April.
In peak apple season, arrive ready for company. People picking fruit and people hunting pie tend to have exactly the same idea about what constitutes a good Saturday.
6. Erie Coffeeshop & Bakery – Rutherford
Not every worthwhile pie comes from a farm stand with pumpkins out front. Rutherford’s Erie Coffeeshop & Bakery takes the opposite approach: good coffee, a compact neighborhood bakery and a menu that changes often enough to reward looking at the case before making any firm decisions.
The current bakery lineup offers a blueberry-peach crumb pie and Key lime pie topped with meringue alongside cakes, crostatas, brioche, cookies, muffins, tarts and other small-batch pastries. That blueberry-peach combination is the one to grab when it is available.
Blueberry brings enough tartness to keep peach from becoming sugary and flat, while the crumb topping gives the whole thing the kind of fork-friendly messiness a polished pastry shop occasionally needs. Key lime is the sharper alternative, especially for anyone who would rather end a meal with citrus than cinnamon.
Erie works best when you approach it as a bakery that happens to make very good pie rather than a pie shop with twenty permanent flavors. The selection can move around, and that unpredictability is part of the appeal.
Pair whatever slice is available with coffee and let somebody else worry about matching dessert to the season. The shop is at 10 Franklin Place and currently opens Wednesday through Sunday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., making it particularly well suited to a late-morning bakery run.
Go earlier if pie is the entire reason for the trip; small-batch bakeries are not known for producing emergency backup blueberry-peach pies at 2:45.
7. Griggstown Farm – Princeton/Skillman
Dessert is only half the pie story at Griggstown Farm. This preserved farm near Princeton is just as well known for its scratch-made chicken pot pies, which are packed with six vegetables, generous pieces of meat and the farm’s signature gravy.
The larger nine-inch version is sized for roughly four people, while a five-inch pie handles a smaller meal. That makes Griggstown an excellent stop for anyone who believes the logical thing to eat before pie is, naturally, more pie.
On the sweet side, the farm sells seasonal fruit pies including apple, apple crumb, apple-blueberry, blueberry, cherry, peach, peach-and-berry and strawberry rhubarb. Many are offered both baked and frozen, and several currently run around $15, which is refreshingly approachable compared with specialty bakery pricing elsewhere in the state.
Griggstown has been farming here since George Rude began raising quail in 1975, while the on-farm market opened in 2002 and later added the kitchen where its prepared foods are made. The store is at 484 Bunker Hill Road and keeps regular hours throughout the week, although Sunday starts at noon.
Come hungry enough to browse beyond dessert. Poultry, soups, prepared dishes and seasonal farm products make this the sort of place where the freezer suddenly seems too small once you get home.
8. Pie Girl NJ – Hightstown
Salted honey lavender is not the pie your grandmother made unless your grandmother was unusually ahead of her time. At Pie Girl NJ, that flavor sits comfortably alongside creations such as grapefruit chess, cranberry chess, chocolate-covered strawberry, rustic chocolate and sweet Jersey corn custard.
Baker Chelsea Frost’s approach is playful without abandoning the thing that matters most: these still look and eat like pies, not conceptual desserts wearing crust as a disguise. The Hightstown shop is deliberately small-scale, and that changes how you should plan the visit.
Current hours are Fridays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. until roughly 2 p.m., or until the bakery sells out. The second half of that sentence matters more than the first.
Arrive early, especially when a weekly flavor has caught your attention. The menu moves with seasons and ideas rather than staying locked into the same dozen standards, so regulars have good reason to keep checking back.
Still, this is not a place that treats classics as boring. Apple crumb appears among the more inventive offerings, providing a useful control sample if floral honey and corn custard are outside your normal pie vocabulary.
Pie Girl also plays around with focaccia, pastries and occasional sandwiches, adding to the “what did they make this weekend?” appeal. For first-timers, the best strategy is simple: buy one flavor you recognize and one you normally would not order.
Nobody needs to drive to Hightstown just to prove they already know what apple tastes like.
9. Mackey’s Orchard – Belvidere
Five pounds of apples inside one pie sounds less like dessert and more like a structural engineering challenge. Mackey’s Orchard calls the result its Mile High Apple Pie, and it is exactly the sort of gloriously excessive signature item that earns a farm a place on a list like this.
The orchard also makes a smaller version, plus apple crumb pies for anyone who prefers streusel to a towering top crust. There is real history behind the bakery case.
Mackey’s is an eighth-generation family farm, and its apple bakery dates to the early 1980s, when Robert Mackey Jr. and his wife, Beatrice, began selling apple pies and cider donuts. The dedicated apple bakery gets going in September, which makes early fall the ideal time to visit if the Mile High pie is your target.
Apple may own the marquee, but it is not the only option. Blueberry, cherry, peach, blackberry, Very Berry and pumpkin are among the other pies that can appear, and smaller apple desserts such as turnovers and dumplings make useful car snacks if the main pie has been ordered not to be touched until dinner.
Mackey’s farmstand and pastry bakery operate seasonally as well, so check what is open before making a long drive to Belvidere. If you do score the Mile High, bring enough people to justify it—or accept that breakfast tomorrow has already been decided.
10. Emery’s Farm – New Egypt
Blueberry pie tastes a little more convincing when you buy it from a farm that actually grows blueberries. Emery’s has been growing and selling directly to customers for more than 70 years, and its New Egypt Country Bakery turns out pies seven days a week.
During blueberry season, when the farm’s U-pick operation is running, the connection between the field and the bakery becomes especially hard to ignore. Blueberry and blueberry crumb are the natural first choices, but stopping there would undersell a bakery that advertises more than 20 pie varieties.
Apple, apple crumb, cherry, peach, pumpkin, raspberry, coconut custard, pecan, strawberry rhubarb and caramel apple walnut are among the options, along with a Lemon Krunch that stands apart from the fruit-heavy crowd. There is also a Trifecta pie and several no-sugar-added choices, including blueberry, apple, peach and mixed fruit.
The farm-market part of the visit deserves a little browsing time. Shelves are stocked with preserves, spreads and other jarred goods, while the bakery adds loaves, muffins, babka, turnovers, cider donuts and crumb cakes to the temptation pile.
Some products are seasonal, and Emery’s readily acknowledges that popular baked goods can sell out despite daily production. Translation: showing up late and becoming emotionally attached to a specific pie is risky.
Pick two acceptable backups before you arrive. Blueberry season is great; leaving empty-handed because somebody bought the final blueberry crumb is not.
11. Penza’s Pies at the Red Barn Cafe – Hammonton
You could invent a quaint backstory for a roadside pie stop, but Penza’s does not need one. Its red barn is roughly 120 years old and once handled farm livestock and later packed Jersey tomatoes, peaches, apples and other produce.
Rather than demolish it when farming needs changed, the family moved the structure across Route 206. Today it anchors a cafe, bakery, farm market and greenhouse, with an old windmill making the place fairly difficult to mistake for a strip-mall bakery.
The pie menu leans into the kind of combinations that make choosing interesting. Apple comes several ways, including double-crust, crumb, apple-cranberry, apple-blueberry and apple-cherry.
Holiday selections can include pumpkin, sweet potato and pecan, but it is the ricotta pies that deserve a second look. Pumpkin-ricotta and peach-ricotta bring a creamy element to familiar seasonal flavors without wandering all the way into cheesecake territory.
There is also an orange-cranberry Duxeberry pie and a multi-fruit option when available. This is the South Jersey stop to build into a Route 206 drive rather than treat as a surgical dessert pickup.
The old barn, farm-market setup and cafe make browsing part of the point. Seasonal menus can change, so call ahead when you are chasing one particular flavor, especially around Thanksgiving.
The better move on an ordinary day is to see what is in the case and let the barn decide what is coming home with you.
12. LiLLiPiES Bakery – Princeton
A whole pie demands commitment. A tiny pie invites experimentation. Princeton’s LiLLiPiES has built its identity around the second philosophy, specializing in signature single-serving pies that make it entirely reasonable for one person to leave with several flavors.
A four-pack currently costs $15.60, which also makes this one of the easier stops for assembling a tasting without turning dessert into a major financial decision.
The bakery opened in Princeton Shopping Center in 2016 and works in small batches, baking on-site from scratch throughout the day. Organic flour is used in its breads and baked goods, with locally sourced and seasonal ingredients providing inspiration for the menu.
Apple-blueberry is one of the flavors closely associated with the bakery, and the small format gives the crust-to-filling ratio a different feel from the giant farm-market pies elsewhere on this list. There is plenty here for anyone who gets distracted before reaching dessert.
LiLLiPiES also makes sourdough breads and English muffins, sweets and an all-day breakfast menu with the very New Jersey option of pork roll, egg and cheese on an English muffin. The bakery is currently open Tuesday through Sunday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 301 North Harrison Street.
If you are visiting specifically for pies, grab an assortment. The entire point of a tiny pie is not having to pretend you can choose only one.