“It’s All Just Gotten Too Hard, We’re Completely Up Against It Financially”: Pie Thief To Close

Ramen, lasagne, barbeque chipotle chicken and kaldereta (Filipino goat stew) are just some of the estimated 800 unconventional pie fillings that co-owner Aaron Donato and the team at Pie Thief have created since opening in 2019.

The company – known for its inventive takes on the classic Aussie pie and its cartoon mascot that calls to mind a Rick and Morty character – is ceasing operations for good on Sunday October 20. “It’s all just gotten too hard, we’re completely up against it financially,” Donato tells Broadsheet.

“It’s been really tough post-Covid, but we’d hoped that some big contracts would have come through. [A wholesale client] turned around and said, ‘We need you to do it for $4 a pie’, and we found that impossible. And that’s been our experience most of this year,” Donato says. “At $4 we’d literally be losing 50 cents a pie.”

Donato and co-owner Scott Blomfield will be selling all stock from the Footscray store at a discount, and will bring back previous pie specials. Their ultimate goal at this stage is to honour existing financial obligations with suppliers, creditors and staff. “We don’t want to be those people,” Donato says.