Prospect Heights is getting its very own Pies ’n’ Thighs, with its location opening on Wednesday, April 1, at 244 Flatbush Avenue (at St. Marks Avenue). Exactly 20 years after first opening in a tiny kitchen under the Williamsburg Bridge, the fried-chicken-and-biscuit staple is expanding while leaning into what has made it a comfort-food mainstay.
Owner Sarah Sanneh says to expect all the hits as well as a focus on families here — reflecting both the neighborhood and the staff’s own lives. “We’ve all grown up together,” Sanneh said. “Now I’m looking around… Could my kid be here? Would this work?”
That thinking has shaped the menu, with the addition of chicken tenders and other kid-friendly options. Developing a tender that holds up in delivery — “my white whale,” Sanneh calls it — became a priority.
Pies ’n’ Thighs opened in 2006 and has since grown into a defining Williamsburg spot. It moved into its current South Fourth Street location in 2010. This new Flatbush Avenue outpost marks its first expansion since a short-lived Canal Street location that opened in 2015. The new restaurant comes at a moment when the team feels more certain about what works. “We know what people come for now,” Sanneh said. “There are things that are non-negotiable.”
The restaurant’s fried chicken, biscuits, and pies have generally remained unchanged since the early days. These include the fried chicken box ($19) — three pieces of bone-in fried chicken with a side and a biscuit. The chicken biscuit ($12.50), a sandwich layered with honey, butter, and hot sauce, is another popular order and “the thing that put us on the map,” says Sanneh. On the sweet side, banana cream with a Nilla wafer crust, layered with fresh bananas, and the apple pies continue to lead sales.
The Prospect Heights space lands in a building from the 1880s, with wraparound banquettes, and an open layout that brings customers closer to the kitchen. While the Williamsburg location evolved through incremental fixes, this one arrives more fully designed. “This is more a place where we’ve made some decisions about what Pies ‘n’ Thighs looks like,” Sanneh says. Still, some of the original scrappiness remains. Sanneh describes sourcing tabletops individually on eBay.
The opening also coincides with the restaurant’s 20th anniversary this month, a milestone Sanneh says feels less like a retrospective and more like momentum. “I don’t want to be a nostalgia brand. I feel proud that 20 years in, we’re still making the best food that we’ve ever made.”