Pie with the Popo: a rock in stormy times

By Julie Armstrong     10/2/08 7:00pm

On Saturday, Sept. 13, disaster struck our formidable city. Despite living in what many have called the energy capital of the world, Houstonians found themselves plunged into darkness. Suffering through round after round of Boggle by candlelight, undergraduates at Rice gave thanks for crowded hallways and lenient dry campus enforcement, dreaming of brighter nights.Another calamity, however, soon overshadowed the direct effects of Hurricane Ike's destruction in our lives, hemming us behind the hedges more effectively than an orgo study session and Pub combined, in addition to removing our most basic comforts. That catastrophe was the citywide curfew.

The Houston Police Department meant well. By sweeping Houstonians off the streets at sundown and locking us into our homes like Jews in 1940 Berlin, they hoped to prevent looting, reduce car crashes and otherwise protect our lives and property. Instituted shortly after Ike's departure, the curfew initially restricted citizens to their houses 9 p.m.-6 a.m. Within the week, it had been pushed back to 12 a.m., allowing many of Houston's residents to resume their usual dining habits, but there was one side effect of this policy that our government chose to overlook: Where would college students dine after midnight?

There was no Katz's, no Tapatia, no Late Nite Pie. In my desperation, I turned to alternative forms of nocturnal sustenance, such as microwaveable noodles and cinnamon oatmeal squares. I even went to Chapultepec at six in the afternoon, and that's just plain wrong.

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By the following Saturday night, I was desperate. Still camping out at Lovett College away from my powerless off-campus home, I had exhausted my stores of peanut butter and Annie Chun's one-minute teriyaki bowls. Unready for sleep and unwilling to concentrate on a movie, close to rioting and vaguely considering cannibalism, my friends and I knew late-night dining was our only option.

Luckily, The Man cracked before we had to. There is one late-night venue that stands above them all, and that Saturday we discovered it had received special permission to resume its 24-hours-a-day schedule, feeding the police force of a dark and hungry city.

Three hours past midnight, with the possibility of a $500 fine hanging over our heads and an empty gas tank, we were driving to the only place ready to satiate our desires: House of Pies.

A sea of blue greeted our arrival. Always a cultural Mecca of sorts, the Monday meal source for Student Association meetings had now become a hideaway for the very people any sane curfew-breaker would hope to avoid. Like the goo that oozes out of a blueberry pie, police officers had packed themselves into the back of the restaurant, chatting vivaciously. A couple of them even took pictures with audacious drunks. And none of them seemed concerned with arresting us.

After a delicious meal of a patty melt, cottage fries and strawberry rhubarb pie (all for free because the waitress had served my friend grilled cheese instead of BLT), I couldn't leave without continuing my tradition of winning at least one stuffed animal from the claw machine. When I could find only a single quarter in my bag, it was a Houston police officer who providedme with three more.

I'm happy to say I left House of Pies that night with a sparkly, frog-headed lobster and a stuffed purple hand. Yes, a hand. But more importantly, I left with renewed faith in HPD and in the illegitimacy of inconvenient ultimatums.

I learned that night that Houston really is the city of hospitality. And our beloved, historic House of Pies is its true standard bearer.

Julie Armstrong is a Will Rice College senior and arts and entertainment editor.

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