When it comes to pie, Curt Lafferty knows his stuff.
After attending the American Institute of Baking (now part of Kansas State University) in Manhattan, Kansas, he initially began a career in sales, eventually taking on Kansas-based Tippin’s Pies as a client. In the early 2000s, he became a consultant for the company, before taking on an executive position there.
Lafferty spent roughly two decades at Tippin’s, and after honing his baking skills, he branched out and launched his own company, Mo Pie, in 2020. Five years later, his pies can be found at several local businesses (including multiple Price Chopper grocery stores) and farmers markets — with hundreds more pies shipped weekly across the Midwest region.
There’s just one thing missing: a brick-and-mortar store. But not for much longer.
Lafferty plans to launch Mo Pie’s first brick-and-mortar bakery in Leawood later this month — first as a pop-up for the holiday season, then permanently in spring or summer 2026.
Mo Pie is coming to 7956 Lee Blvd.
- The bakery is moving into a space at the Somerset Shops in northern Leawood.
- There, it will operate near Somerset Family Dentistry and Leawood Wine & Spirits.
- Once it opens, Lafferty said Mo Pie’s new store will initially be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. during its pop-up phase.
Mo Pie will start as a holiday pop-up
The new pie shop will open in a couple of weeks for Thanksgiving orders (which customers can place now) in its new Leawood space.
This test run will be Nov. 24-26, with another “pop-up” for Christmas orders Dec. 22-24. If all goes according to plan, then Mo Pie will have two more “pop-ups” for Valentine’s Day and Easter before opening permanently in the space, Lafferty said.
For the holiday season, Mo Pie will offer some of its seasonal selections — including pumpkin cream cheese, chocolate bourbon pecan and white chocolate peppermint.
Once Mo Pie gets up and running more permanently, the menu will expand to include its other flavors. The shop will also offer other baked goods like cinnamon rolls, carrot cake and cornbread.
Lafferty said some of Mo Pie’s best-sellers tend to be key lime, apple, peach, cherry and German chocolate. Customers can get those pies either in standard (9 inches) sizes or as 4-inch “mini” pies (the latter of which are all gluten-free).
On any given week, Mo Pie’s team prepares roughly 2,500 pies in its current space at the K-State Olathe campus — hand-weaving lattice pie crust and baking dough from scratch.
“There’s really not one pie that looks the same — we always joke around that they’re like snowflakes,” he said. “Everything we try to do is just as natural as it can be.”
More growth is on the horizon for Mo Pie
As a Leawood resident himself, Lafferty said the Somerset Shops made a sensible first stop for Mo Pie’s foray into brick-and-mortar operations.
He’d already been considering opening a shop in Leawood for a while, but he said the idea solidified when he and his wife happened upon the space one day. To them, he said, it felt like the perfect fit.
“We were taking a Sunday walk one day and walked by, and it just felt like it was meant to be,” he said.
But Lafferty hopes Leawood is just the beginning. Ultimately, he plans to make Mo Pie’s retail presence more widespread in the coming years — likening his vision of expansion to that of the Nothing Bundt Cakes concept.
The growth doesn’t just apply to retail though. He said he’s had many inquiries from businesses across the country about wholesale partnerships as well, and with a new space, that will be easier to accommodate.
“The product just speaks for itself,” he said. “In our stores, we’ll (be able to) just take it to another level.”
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