Grand Traverse Pie Company: Best. Month. Ever.

First, the local news: Grand Traverse Pie Company (GTPC) just finalized plans to open a second shop in downtown Traverse City. The address: 101 North Park, developer Thom Darga’s five-story commercial/residential building into which the TC law offices of Smith Haughey Rice & Roegge – the development’s first commercial tenant – moved November 1.

101 North Park is just six blocks east of the first GTPC shop, which owners Mike and Denise Busley opened on TC’s Front Street in 1996. The original location will remain open, says Mike Busley; the North Park location will be the new home to the company’s 2,800-square-foot Bakery Café.

Busley says GTPC’s Bakery Café concept will be the model for all future franchise locations. Designed for urban scale and use – and to nab a slice of the booming “fast, casual” food sector that successful eateries like Panera and Corner Bakery enjoy – GTPC’s new incarnation will boast a small footprint; highly efficient breakfast, lunch and dinner service for singles, families and business groups; extended hours to accommodate downtown employees and visitors; and of course, more than a dozen varieties of the handmade, from-scratch pies that have helped GTPC evolve into an 18-franchise (and counting) pie empire.

The North Park shop is expected to open in April of 2011; the company’s Bakery Café prototype will get a test run this December at a location GTPC is opening in downtown Lansing, just steps away from the state capitol.

The national news? This month, GTPC’s pumpkin pie was named the best in the nation by Country Living magazine, which did a nationwide taste test and deemed the fall favorite “a slice of heaven with a dense mousse-like texture and a crust detail that won our hearts!” The pie is featured in the November issue of Country Living.

Last Friday, producers for ABC television show Good Morning America called to invite Mike – and his most prized Thanksgiving pies – to New York City for a show taping. By Monday morning, Busley had packed up 15 fresh GTPC’s pumpkin and pecan pies and flew from Cherry Capital Airport to New York City to hand deliver the holiday pies to the set.

As a special thanks to the show's hosts, Busley also cooked up one of GTPC’s special oversized pies. Because a finished giant pie is too big to fly, Busley hauled and shipped all the necessary ingredients to NYC – among them Michigan apples, of course – then baked his hefty apple crumb pie in the oven housed in pal Mario Batali’s Greenwich Village restaurant, Otto.

Says Mike: “I left the restaurant with the pie at 10:30 p.m. Downpour. I couldn’t get a cab because when it rains in New York City, everyone else uses a cab … the bartender Eric came out of Otto – end of his shift – helped me carry the pie three blocks to 6th Avenue, where he hailed a limo and negotiated a good rate for my ride back to my hotel. Talk about service – above and beyond for sure!”

Here’s hoping Busley enjoys being on the receiving end of good service. Between now and Thanksgiving, GTPC will bake more than 50,000 pies; no doubt, the rest of the GTPC bakers will need his help.

Catch him if you can: The Good Morning America show featuring GTPC will air on ABC during this morning’s 8:30 a.m. segment.