Mr. Tod's Pies Marks a Year on Newark's Halsey Street, Gears Up for 24-Hour Thanksgiving Eve Bake-A-Thon

For a pie shop, Thanksgiving is the Super Bowl. At Mr. Tod's Pies in downtown Newark, the game plan is a 24-hour bake-a-thon on Thanksgiving Eve.

The bakery just wrapped its first year at 201 Halsey St. City officials recently marked the milestone with a ribbon cutting there, and Mayor Ras Baraka and the Newark Municipal Council presented the business with a formal recognition for its impact and growth.

The catch is that everything at Mr. Tod's is baked from scratch. That is the whole selling point, and it is also what makes the busiest pie week of the year a heavy lift.

Founder Tod A. Wilson has handled a big stage before. He was the first entrepreneur to pitch on ABC's "Shark Tank," appearing in the show's 2009 premiere with his signature sweet potato pies. Today the business sells through its retail shop and ships nationwide, and the Halsey Street location has an upstairs lounge where customers can sit down with pies, mini cakes, cobblers, cheesecakes and coffee.

Thanksgiving Eve falls on Wednesday, Nov. 25, this year. Start and end times for the bake-a-thon have not been announced publicly, so anyone counting on a holiday pie should check with the shop directly before heading downtown.

Source: Entrepreneur (Shark Tank background).

Photo: Djflem / Wikimedia Commons (public domain, CC0)