For Dave Achatz, restaurants are in his blood. His parents, Vince and Irene, owned a catering company and restaurant. Dave’s younger brother, Steve, ran Achatz Soup in Marine City until it closed in 2017. His cousin, Grant Achatz Sr., owned Achatz Riverview Restaurant in Richmond, where his son, legendary Chicago chef Grant Achatz, got his start as a dishwasher.
Vince and Irene’s Achatz Family Restaurant in Armada was where Dave first met a waitress named Wendy, who started working there as a high schooler. At the restaurant, Wendy quickly discovered her passion for baking. She began working with Dave’s mother and grandmother, who first showed her how to make strawberry shortcake — an Achatz family recipe passed down through generations. Wendy eventually married Dave, taking his last name, and together they owned the restaurant until 1990, when they decided to sell and leave the food industry altogether.
But the industry has a way of pulling people back in. Three years later, the couple started Achatz Pies and began baking in their home kitchen and selling their products at the Armada Flea Market. Even in the early years, Achatz Pies focused on using local ingredients, starting with apples grown on their 10-acre apple orchard.
Since its humble farmhouse beginnings in 1993, Achatz Pies now has nine metro Detroit locations and can be found on Whole Foods shelves around the country. In 2023, the company began rebranding to Pie Collective, a move Wendy feels better encapsulates their connections to local farmers.
“We like Pie Collective because we feel it brings home the idea of us and how closely we work with our farmers,” Wendy says. “Whether it’s the dairy farmers in Mio, or the wheat, apple, and peach farmers on the west side of the state, the idea is to better open it up to more people.”
For now, six of their older stores will keep the Achatz Pies name, while newer locations in Madison Heights, Livonia, and Bloomfield Hills will carry the Pie Collective branding. As for the future of Pie Collective, Wendy and Dave are looking to keep the business in the family, one day handing over the reins to their adult children.
‘I’ve Never Met an Oven I Trusted’: Baking tips from Wendy Achatz
What are your tips for making the perfect pie dough?
Time and temperature are most important. Don’t overmix the dough. Use your senses to make sure it has the right look and feel. When you’re mixing, can you still feel the small chunks of fat in the dough, or did you just smash them out? If it’s a hot day and the butter is melting, take a pause and put the bowl in the fridge to let it cool down before continuing. When adding water, just incorporate the ingredients together. It’s not bread, so don’t knead the dough.
Lattice or no lattice for apple pie?
If I’m eating a pie, I prefer just a solid top. You want that nice crust that’s not too thick. When making a lattice pie, people often make the mistake of making the strips too thick, and since they’re weaved together, it’s double the thickness. If you’re going to make a lattice, though, the strips should be about 1/8-inch thick.
How do you know if the bottom of your pie will be soggy?
Sometimes the top looks great and the filling looks good, but the bottom has some oily spots. If the pie is underbaked, you have to start troubleshooting it. Maybe you baked it on the top rack when you should have had it on the middle rack, or maybe there were multiple pies in at the same time, and they cooled the oven down.
How do you achieve a flaky crust?
To get a good flake, you’re going to need lots of fat — the more the better. Lard makes a nice, flaky crust. A mix of half shortening and half butter works, too, because then you’re still getting the nice flavor of the butter. If you’re making a pumpkin or a custard pie, always blind-bake your crust. Bake the crust halfway, fill them, and then finish baking the pie.
How do you achieve an even cook on pies?
A really good tool to use is an oven thermometer. I’ve never met an oven I trusted, and every one of them is different. If you have your oven set to 350 degrees, and you put the pie in when it was at 275 degrees, you’re going to have a problem. Maintaining temperature control is important, and if your oven is preheated to the proper temperature, then that’s a good start.
This story originally appeared in the December 2025 issue of Hour Detroit magazine. To read more, pick up a copy of Hour Detroit at a local retail outlet. Click here to get our digital edition.
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