Sheilagh Duncan, better known as the pie boss, is leading her restaurant, PieBird, into the U.S. Foods Next Top Product competition.

“We entered for North Carolina and South Caro lina and I guess for West Virginia too,” Duncan said. “We already won for our district so now we got to our region and compete against other people.”

U.S. Foods Next Top Product asked PieBird to join its competition because of its quirky pies, specifi cally PieBird’s Bananas ‘n Pajamas Pie, a pie with an Oreo cookie crust layered with bananas, choco late hazelnut ganache and white chocolate custard topped with whipped cream.

Duncan said her baker, Ruby Arthur, is the reason that PieBird has so many unique pie flavors.

“We have lots of cookbooks back in the kitchen,” Duncan said. “It’s hilarious because pies have been around for such a long time, so, we like to have some fun with them. We’re always looking to do some thing different so we all sit down and look through a bunch of books to see what we can do next.”

Duncan said the Bananas ‘n Pajamas Pie is one of their craziest creations.

“It really came from when Ruby was working one afternoon and she said, ‘I can’t make any pies!’” Duncan said. “We have a chef in the kitchen at the time that said, ‘That’s ridiculous, what do you have?’ So Ruby started listing all the ingredients she had. The other chef said, ‘Well it sounds to me like you can make a pie out of that.’ He was really being a smarty-pants and just walked away. Well that’s exactly what Ruby did, she made a pie with what she said.”

Duncan said she originally cooked up the idea of PieBird after losing her job during the 2008-2009 stock market crash.

“I was working in the design business and lost my job,” Duncan said. “I read somewhere that the design business, as a whole that year, went down 25 percent, so, I don’t feel like I was selected. I just thought, ‘I’ve done that and now it’s time for me to do something else.’”

With no job and the opportunity to start fresh, Duncan said she decided she would try something new: Pies. Apple, blueberry, peach, raspberry and strawberry — the possibilities were endless.

“I said, ‘I’m going to see if anyone wants to buy pies,’” Duncan said. “I figured I’d make some pies and see what people said. I practiced and then went down to Staples to make copies of little brochures that I had made up.”

Picturing herself fluttering around the neighbor hood delivering pies, Duncan said she felt that Pie Bird was the perfect name.

“I was in Staples and a friend of mine came up and asked what I was doing,” Duncan said. “She helped me step everything up and as the copies were com ing out of the machine she started to read them and said, ‘Oh! I want to order this, and I want to order that!’ She was really serious, and I continued to tell her, ‘No, don’t give me the order now just wait until I get home.’ I thought she was just being such a silly person.”

Duncan said she realized how serious people were taking her idea when she started handing out brochures.

“I got home, folded the brochures and then went around my neighborhood to hand them out,” Dun can said. “All of a sudden there were people coming out of their houses after me, after I had stuck it in their mail slot, running to give me orders. I was just going down the street — it was the craziest thing!”

Duncan said she outgrew the kitchen in her home and had to move to a shared com mercial kitchen.

“It [the commercial kitchen] didn’t work out very well so [I] was kind of de pressed and was trying to think of what I could do,” Duncan said. “I knew that this place had become available but that it needed a lot of work.”

According to Duncan, the spot was previously an Italian market and was riddled with problems — everything from rotting food to live wires.

“After a long trip to visit my daughter, I figured, what the hell,” Duncan said. “I’m going to put a de posit down on the place, ‘What’s the worst thing that could happen?’ I thought.”

Duncan said that she still wasn’t sure if she was going to be able to make it work.

“I finally raised some cash and the rest is history,” Duncan said.

Even though PieBird’s Bananas n’ Pajamas Pie is currently compet ing against foods such as bacon jam and roasted corn salsa, Duncan hopes that because it is such a big hit at the shop, voters participating in the U.S. Foods Next Top Product competition will like it too.

“We’ll just have to see what hap pens,” Duncan said.

According to Duncan, pies were, in the end, just what she needed.

“I thought it would be a unique niche to fall into,” Duncan said. “It was all done on a wing and a prayer.”