House of Pies in Houston is so legendary that it has a nickname based on its late-night clientele in this gay-friendly city (“House of Guys”) and, in the words of one online reviewer, is as difficult to review as the Bible because “it’s impossible to separate what it actually is from its historical context.” We take that to mean it’s been here a long time and may be living on past laurels.
     Our experience on two visits was that of enjoying attentive service, good food and outstanding pie but having the entire experience ruined when an unwanted visitor arrived at our table.
     First, the décor: very similar to that of the House of Pies in L.A. but warmer, with brown leather booth cushions, well-worn tabletops, ceiling fans, Tiffany-style lamps and a strip of red neon along the top of one wall. Signs listing the pie menu cover two walls (first photo).
     The ambience: eclectic group of oldsters and young people, cops, Astros and Rice University fans, but these visits were during the lunch hour, not late at night when the quirky side of Houston emerges.
     The food: typical diner food, with burgers, grilled chicken sided with (frozen) vegetable medley, salads and the like. Most diners will be hard pressed not to find something to eat at HOP.
     The pies: amazing. A slice of the bayou goo is said to solve every problem a person may have. But John went with the French blackbottom on his first trip here, and it inspired rolling of the eyes heavenward: a rich chocolate filling and a layer of vanilla rum custard with a whipped cream topping and chocolate shavings.
     A later visit with Jennifer and her brother and his son, Billy Schuller and Kaleb Schuller, brought similar rave reviews for the after-breakfast pie selections of chocolate banana (slices of banana through the deep chocolate layer), the strawberry cream (with sizable fruit although not the size of the ’berries in the pie at the L.A. HOP) and the Texas pecan fudge, which is really pecan pie on top of fudge; now, you come up with a better flavor combination than that!
     Other choices include Pippin apple, Dutch apple, strawberry-rhubarb, Elberta peach, sugar-free chocolate, apple or pumpkin, German chocolate, French silk, Bavarian chocolate (with a light mousse filling), Bavarian banana, the aforementioned bayou goo (chopped pecans with sweet cream cheese under a vanilla/chocolate topping, whipped cream, powdered sugar and chocolate shavings), mincemeat, egg cream custard (an Old English recipe, the menu says), coconut custard, sweet potato and lemon ice box. Not to mention the cheesecakes, cookies, fudge brownies, muffins and cream puffs. 
     The visitor: John knows from having lived in Houston previously that life in such a humid environment comes with certain sacrifices, one very prominent one being that cockroaches are everywhere. And we do mean everywhere. Yes, restaurants try to keep them out, and the cashier at HOP told us that the place had been fumigated just the day before, but it’s difficult. 

     But John also knew that the spraying of roach poison either emboldens Houston roaches or drives them crazy, and they start doing things like coming out in broad daylight. That’s what happened to us when such a monster crawled up over the edge of our table during the pie course to see what was what. “It’s as big as my thumb!” said brother Billy, who’s from North Carolina and astutely noted the unusual girth of what was a typical Houston roach, or water bug, as they’re also known.
     We bolted out of our booth, took not one single bite more and headed for the cash register. To his credit, the HOP manager, when informed of our run-in with Mother Nature right there between the chocolate banana and the Texas pecan fudge, took care of our bill with considerable apologies. But, even knowing what an uphill battle it is to rid a place of the pests, meeting one on such a personal basis was sure a disappointing ending to an otherwise excellent meal with pie.