By next week, Sydney’s Sweet Shoppe will have made 700 pies ahead of Thanksgiving.
It’s a week of days and nights rolling fresh dough, chopping chocolate, toasting coconut, labeling pie containers. By the end of it, owner Sydney Adams is covered in pumpkin.
“It’s controlled chaos I should say,” she says. “We always try to be one step ahead of the game. As long as we are prepared in advance, it just goes by seamlessly.”
Year-round, Sydney's Sweet Shoppe's bestsellers are Dutch apple and key lime.
Sydney’s Sweet Shoppe, 8969 E. Tanque Verde Road, is completely family-run, with only Adams and her dad, Leon Adams, baking at the store. When her sister isn’t in class, she comes to help. Adams’ husband and mom help when they can, too.
This Thanksgiving, the first orders placed were for the Adams family — about six pies: coconut cream, pumpkin, chocolate, key lime, Dutch apple and cherry. “We have to get our orders in there, too,” Adams says.
The cutoff to order a pie in time for Thanksgiving was Nov. 15, and Sydney’s will be closed to the public until December as the shop prepares holiday orders and then takes a much-needed break.
“Our phones are always ringing after we cut off the deadline and people come to the door looking for last-minute slices,” Adams says.
Sydney Adams opened Sydney’s Sweet Shoppe at 8969 E. Tanque Verde Road in October 2020 — just in time for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday seasons. She previously baked at the Cook Tucson community kitchen.
Among the two dozen flavors at the east-side shop, it's no shock that the most popular flavor this time of year is pumpkin. This year, the layered pumpkin pecan pie has been joining the ranks. Year-round, though, the bestsellers are Dutch apple and key lime. Adams’ personal favorite is the coconut cream pie.
“I love after people pick up their holiday pies and they’ll tag us in their (Instagram) Stories that they’re ready for dessert,” Adams says. “Or that Sydney’s has become a family tradition for them — it warms my heart because I’ve been able to enjoy these pies all my life.”
Adams, 27, is carrying on the legacy of her grandma, Patricia “Pat” Finney, using recipes that Finney developed in an Illinois home economics class in the 1940s.
“She used to worry her pie-making skills would end with her, but now that she knows that someone else is carrying it on, it just makes her more proud,” Adams says.
Sydney Adams, owner of Sydney's Sweet Shoppe, poses for a portrait in front of a wall filled with family photos on March 4, 2021.
Perfecting the pie
Sydney’s Sweet Shoppe was a pandemic baby, the brick and mortar officially opened in October 2020. But the journey really started in 2018, after Adams was able to perfect her grandma’s recipes.
From a young age, though, Adams has loved to bake. When her grandma moved to Tucson about a decade ago, Adams loved watching her bake — especially pie. The family calls Finney the pie queen.
Sydney Adams, owner of Sydney's Sweet Shoppe, cuts an apple for a dutch apple pie on March 4, 2021.
“She’s always loved baking for others and more importantly her family — her children and her husband. I really enjoyed her recipes and her methods as far as baking pie, and there aren’t many people who can do that successfully. I knew in my heart of hearts that I needed to know how she did it,” Adams says.
So, her grandma showed her how to measure. She showed her how to bake with quality ingredients. And eventually, Adams perfected the recipe.
“She’ll tell you it was wonderful to work with someone like me, who was so much like her,” Adams says. “It just helped that I was willing to listen and didn’t want to take shortcuts like most people in baking when they’re tired or frustrated, but I stood by her.”
Sydney's Sweet Shoppe has a long list of pie flavors, including both fruit and cream flavors. Pictured is cherry.
The most important, but not necessarily the most difficult, part of pie-making is the crust. It requires patience that Adams didn't have, and the process can be tedious.
“For me to be able to say now that I can successfully make her pie crust, I'm very proud of it,” Adams says. “It just takes time, and to be able to understand what it should look like and feel like in your hands to not over-work it — it's a very tedious process, but once you get it, it's the most fulfilling thing.”
Sydney Adams, owner of Sydney’s Sweet Shoppe, makes a dutch apple pie.
Despite her love for baking, though, Adams didn't originally dream of opening a pie shop. Instead, she was on track to become a nurse, just like her sister.
“I just really pictured myself doing something in the health care field because I love to help people, whether that be through a medical profession or even now as a baker. It brings me a lot of joy doing something nice for people,” she says. “This just kinda took over. I would always watch my grandma, and this just feels right.”
The pivotal moment came when she began baking for her family, friends and who she calls “eager coworkers.”
“I put out a flyer around Christmastime, advertising four different flavors for a ridiculous price now that I look at it now,” she says. “I got like 30 people to say yes. That’s when I’m realizing I’m taking something I enjoy doing and I can make money off of it at the same time. This can be a dream of creating a bakery or pie shop.”
Leon Adams, father of Sydney's Sweet Shoppe owner Sydney Adams, pours pecan filling inside a pie crust on March 4, 2021.
“A lot of people at my store right now — they’re so thankful that there’s a pie shop in Tucson because you don’t find that many scratch-made bakeries, let alone pie shops, anymore,” Adams says.
When Adams isn't baking, she loves taking mini road trips up to Mount Lemmon, watching shows at Centennial Hall and the Gaslight Theatre and supporting local restaurants (most recently, it was Italian favorite Locale). Right now, she and her husband are in the middle of planning a second wedding ceremony, one that's larger than the close-knit backyard wedding they had during the pandemic.
Sydney's Sweet Shoppe, located at 8969 E. Tanque Verde Road, will reopen in December. The shop carries full-size pies, as well as slices, and can cater events. For more information, visit the website.
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