Pie Shoppe in Laughlintown gets new look, though popular menu remains same

When the owners of The Original Pie Shoppe in Laughlintown decided to renovate, they didn’t hire a fancy design firm. They trusted the job to an employee who understood traffic patterns in the popular bakery/breakfast/lunch spot.

The employee is clerk Seth Brown of Ligonier, who also is studying marketing and general management at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown.

“He did an amazing job,” said Jennie Lucchetti, who works in group sales for the business owned by Tom and Kelly Columbus. “He has a great eye and he knows how everything flows.”

The shop reopened Tuesday after a two-month closure for the redesign that included removal of an interior wall, new flooring, display cases, coffee station and coolers; painting; and an upgraded cash register system.

“(The Columbuses) came to me and asked if I’d like to give it a shot,” Brown said. “It took a year and a half of planning and three different designs pieced together.”

The Pitt-Johnstown sophomore said his education helped in the process. He said he also has something of a vested interest in the shop — his parents and grandparents also have worked there.

“Marketing includes a lot of product placement, and layout is a big part of that,” he said. “I really enjoyed the process, and there wasn’t a moment I wasn’t excited about it.”

The shop closed Feb. 9 for the work. That was the longest it had been closed since it was founded as a small bakery in 1947 by Melvin Columbus and his mother, Mildred. Tom Columbus is Melvin’s youngest son.

Special orders and fundraiser sales continued during renovations.

“Across Pennsylvania, people were still eating their Pie Shoppe pies,” Lucchetti said.

While the interior is new, the menu remains the same, Lucchetti said. That includes 47 varieties of the namesake pies, cinnamon rolls baked from Melvin’s original recipe, breads, rolls, cookies, cakes and other sweets, along with breakfast and lunch items such as pizzas, paninis, sandwiches and sides.

A build-your-own doughnut option was added last year, Lucchetti said, in which the customer chooses among many doughnut options and then adds choices of icing and toppings.

Tuesday’s reopening was busy, she said, preceded by “a lot of calls and a lot of anticipation. We had a big lunchtime crowd. The owners can’t say thanks enough to everyone, staff included.”

Stopping in Wednesday for pickled eggs and iced tea, Sandy Ellis of Boswell looked around and said, “I don’t like it — I love it.”