The Key Lime Pie Shop Is Closed Today. The Pie Is at Waterside Until 2.

If you look up Caribbean Pie Co. this morning, the hours box on its own website gives you one word: Closed.

Don't panic. That's the shop on Bee Ridge Road taking its Sunday. The pie is still working. Per the About page, Caribbean Pie Co. sets up at the Farmers' Market at Lakewood Ranch every Sunday, and that market runs 10 AM to 2 PM at Waterside Place. So you have until 2. Plan your morning around it.

Same pie, 35-plus years

The homepage says the key lime recipe has been a Sarasota favorite for more than 35 years, and that it won the 2023 People's Choice Award for Best Pie in Sarasota. The classic key lime pie page brags about a 2022 Reader's Choice win too. Getting voted best pie in a town full of people who moved here from places with strong pie opinions, two years in a row? That's not luck. That's a résumé.

The current owner writes on the About page that he spent his career in sales, moved his family to Sarasota and bought the shop, keeping the recipes the way regulars knew them. His two sons helped run it before heading off to their own careers. He still works the markets himself, because, in his words, "Old habits die hard."

About the stick

The thing they're famous for is printed across the top of their website: the Key Lime Pie on a Stick. Same tangy filling, same graham cracker crust, built to be held in one hand. It's $6.24 in the online shop.

I want to explain why this is the correct format. A farmers market is a place where both of your hands are already taken. One has the tote with the sunflowers poking out. The other has a coffee, or a dog leash, or a small child who has opinions about the kettle corn. Nobody at a Sunday market has ever had a free hand for a paper plate and a plastic fork. The stick gets it.

The rest of the lineup

From their online shop, as listed today:

• Classic key lime from $19.76, original or gluten-free. For gluten-free, call to see if one's ready or allow 2 to 3 days for a special order.
• Raspberry, mango, tropical fruit and chocolate-swirled key lime from $22.88.
• Chocolate silk, coconut cream, peanut butter, orange Dreamsicle, and banana cream with salted caramel from $24.96.
• Seasonal pumpkin ($23.92) and Southern pecan ($26.52), because it is technically fall somewhere.
• Mini pies from $5.20, and key lime bites by the dozen, chocolate-drizzle or graham crumble, for $14.56.

My favorite detail: the pies come without whipped topping. If you want the little shell border of whipped topping around the edge, it's a $2.08 add-on. This pie does not assume. It lets you decide who you are.

Can't make it by 2?

They deliver around Sarasota, Bradenton and Venice for a flat $15, per the delivery page, and they're on DoorDash, Grubhub and Uber Eats. Big or specialty orders need 48 hours' notice. They also rent out a dessert cart with a green-and-white umbrella that keeps everything cold for hours with no electricity, which is a better plan for an outdoor Florida party than anything I have ever personally brought.

Saturdays they're at the Venice Farmers Market. Today it's Lakewood Ranch, the same Sunday market where Hofmann's Liquor Cakes sets up. I'm not saying you should eat pie on a stick and then a vodka cake before lunch. I'm saying they're both there until 2.

— Marina