The Best of Bristol

Our pies and pasties are made and baked fresh each day in the North Street ‘bakehouse’.

From the opening of the flour bag in the early hours to the packing in boxes mid morning we take pride in the knowledge that our pies and pasties are created with care and attention by our team of workers.     

Each product is made from quality ingredients sourced locally wherever possible. We appreciate that our customers are loyal to us and we in turn are loyal to our local suppliers.

Phone

0117 966 3894

Email

info@clarkspies.net 

Location

Bakehouse
259 North Street, Ashton Gate, Bristol, BS3 1JN

Hours

Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday 8.00am-2.30pm (alternate weeks 3.00pm)

Tuesday and Saturday 8.00am-2.00pm

Closed Sunday

Our People

Our team of 16 men and women sing (how can I stop them?), dance and chuckle their way through baking the 2000 pies and pasties each day.

I like to think that it is more of a social get together! We also have 4 drivers responsible for making sure the pies are delivered on time.

If you are interested in joining our team, please do get in touch.  We currently do not have any vacancies, but will get in touch should an opportunity become available.

WANT TO JOIN US?

If you are interested in joining the Clark’s Pies team, please contact Keith on 0117 9663894 for an application form.  We will get in touch should a vacancy become available.

Story of Clark’s Pies

The story of Clark’s Pies starts a hundred years ago in Cardiff, where Mary Clark, the mother of nine children, worked as a housekeeper for a wealthy family.  

One day, whilst making the weekly steak and kidney pie for the family, she broke the big dish she used and had to make individual pies instead.  They tasted so good her friends and family suggested she should sell a few. So with Percy, Mary’s son they started to make pies to sell to passers-by. Times were very hard, so it came as a very welcome supplement to the Clarks income.  Clark’s Pies was established in the form of a table on the pavement outside her terrace house and soon after, the first shop opened.  The pies are still sold in Cardiff today.

In 1929, Mary's son Percy decided to branch out to Bristol, establishing a shop in Old Market, Bristol and continued to make pies using his mother's secret recipe.  Six years later he moved to a new premises, 259 North Street, Bedminster, where he was better located to feed the hundreds of women and girls working at the Wills cigarette factory (now the Tobacco Factory). Stories of queues leading from the Bakehouse all the way down North Street to Raleigh Road are retold by many elderly customers in the shop.  Percy lived over the shop with his wife and four children.   

Despite his ambition to be an astronomer, Percy's son, John, started working for the business aged 15 and stayed for the next 42 years.  The business was eventually passed to John and then on to his younger brothers, Ken and then Roger Clark.

Almost 80 years since the move to the Bakehouse in North Street, Clark’s Pies is still thriving in the original North Street premises and has been managed by Keith Prested since 2008. Dawn Clark (Roger’s daughter) continues the family connection as a Director and shareholder. Both Keith and Dawn retired as professional ballet dancers with Scottish Ballet and moved back to Bristol in 2001.

The business continues to deliver daily to about 200 outlets, details of which can be found on our Where to buy page.

Read more about Clark’s Pies in the books 'Made in Bristol: 50 Stories of Local Enterprise and Invention' by David Bolton and also in, 'Life of Pies-in search of piefection' by Martin Tarbuck

Get in Touch

Whether you’re interested in selling our pies, have a query, or would like to give us some feedback, please use the contact form below, or call us on 0117 966 3894.

For details of our shops, please see the Where to buy page of this site.