Patti LaBelle’s sweet potato pies have outshined any sale vendors could have imagined for Black Friday.
Thursday was no different. Many stores feature special sales during abbreviated hours during the holiday, but Patti’s Pies, as they’ve come to be known on social media, are nowhere in sight.
A review posted on YouTube by LaBelle fan James Wright, where he ate the pie and sporadically burst into several of the singer's hits, went viral on social media two weeks ago. The pies, which had sold modestly since their September debut, literally flew off the shelves.
Stores have signs posted next to empty dessert racks telling customers to check their respective Facebook pages for alert on when the pies would be back in stock.
Phyllis Williams traveled to Atlanta from Dublin for Thanksgiving with her daughter. She stopped inside the Walmart at 4725 Ashford Dunwoody Road in Dunwoody for the chance at a pie.
“You see that sign?” A bakery worker told her, pointing to the empty shelves a few feet away. “We haven’t seen those pies in about three weeks.”
But Williams came prepared, having saved half a pie from a Patti Pie run a friend had successfully attempted in Middle Georgia a week ago.
Joshua Sellers of Atlanta said the lure of the pie backed by the famous singer had finally worn off. For him, anyway.
“When I first heard it, yeah I did think about it,” he said. “But I like the homemade pies better.”
A native of Chicago, Sellers said his grandmother who still lives there makes the best sweet potato pie he knows. A family friend who lives in metro Atlanta makes them, too. Hers is a close second place, he said.
“I actually just picked up one from her not long ago,” he said.
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