“Taste Buds” is a new online column by two local residents writing under the pseudonyms of “Vivanda Felice” and “Pipa Benoit” – two Monroe County foodies dedicated to supporting and highlighting local food spirit and culture.

Tonight’s dinner at Pie Hard Pizzeria in downtown Waterloo felt cinematic. I (Vivanda) am glowing with food euphoria like I’m in a scene where lovers share a post-coital cigarette. If I weren’t in public, I’d lick my plate and the “hot honey ranch” from my fingers. My serotonin production is on overdrive, and I don’t think it was just the tryptophan-rich Street Corn Salmon salad. With each course, the stress of my day melted away.

The menu featured a first-time collaboration with their Mill Street neighbor, Gallagher’s Restaurant. Enraptured by the first bite of the chicken parmesan pizza sandwich featuring Gallagher’s fried chicken, a guttural growl involuntarily emerged from somewhere within me. My delight was embarrassingly audible. Layers of garlic, roasted red pepper and basil danced in their housemade sauce, sandwiched between the chewy sourdough wood-fired crust, complementing the breaded chicken and signature Gallagher’s spices. It was another culinary match made in heaven, like the BBQ-pie union of the “Chili Cheese” pizza featuring Shorty’s Smokehouse pulled pork. Chef, you’ve outdone yourself again.

But many reviewers have recommended that you immediately drop your fork and rush to Pie Hard to experience the genius of chef-owner Michael Pastor. The accolades in St. Louis Post Dispatch (critic Ian Froeb’s best 100 restaurants in 2023, 2024), Feast Magazine (2023 Feast 50 Readers’ Choice Awards for best pizza), and Sauce Magazine are well-earned. Locals gush praise for both the menu and service, with five-star reviews on Yelp and Facebook.

Undoubtedly your palate will be impressed by the quality of their scratch kitchen. Every dough, every sauce, every topping, every protein is prepared in-house, with exception of the cheese and pepperoni. Pie Hard’s unique flavor combinations are a standout in the pizza-rich options of Waterloo, with a total of 13 restaurants that sling pie. But the Pie Hard magic is more than the food. Meet Megan Keefe: the yin to Michael’s yang, a creative collaborator and marketing savant, whose vision to bring Michael’s recipes to her hometown has gained a dedicated local following.

Megan worked for months with Space STL to design and fabricate Pie Hard’s funky fresh space. Her style is the essence of Pie Hard’s vibe (perhaps inspired by her fashion merchandising background) and mirrors the bewitching flavor mash-ups on the menu. She’s so the cool girl we all want to be friends with.

But Megan has also discovered that success in Waterloo isn’t competition, but collaboration with neighboring downtown Waterloo eateries. Pie Hard caters to Vintage Wine Bar, and throughout Monroe County, including at my own holiday party for 70 people featuring the tenderest pork tenderloin with herbed salsa verde, candied bacon mac and cheese and goat cheese mashed potatoes. Megan’s craft cocktails showcase Stumpy’s Spirits. Stubborn German customers enjoy Pie Hard delivery to the brewery, pie-slinging at Stubborn Fest, and catering in Stubborns’ downstairs Speakeasy. The Stubborn-Hard fusion also produced an entertaining convo on the Stubborn podcast. Pull up to the bar and enjoy an apricot flavored Hans Lager, specially brewed by Stubborn to pair with Pastor’s pizza sauce.

Adversity yields perseverance and innovation for this duo. Confronted with COVID at their planned opening in April 2020, they have been ever evolving since the days of their food truck. To survive the pandemic, they offered pop-up menus featuring cuisine from around the world that gave us reasons to never leave Waterloo. Seasonal specials, themed menus and trivia events keep Pie Hard die-hards coming back for more. Attend their pizza making class to learn about the slow, cold fermentation of their pizza dough. Enjoy a “soup-nazi” inspired menu at the Seinfeld trivia night. Calendar March 14, 2025 for their “Pi Day” celebration featuring pie-themed cocktails, dough flipping lessons with Nate, a Backstoppers fundraiser, and a pie competition judged by Waterloo area math teachers. Tell your auntie that her winning pie may become Pie Hard’s next custard flavor.

And more is on the horizon. Pop culture inspired menus, DoorDash delivery, and maybe another carryout location are brewing in the Pie Hard percolator. Their inventive endeavors are in perpetual motion.

The Megan-Michael partnership is evident in every element of Pie Hard. Megan crafts her cocktails for Michael, and Michael trusts Megan to taste-test new recipes for him: an example of their symbiosis. Together, they have designed a winning recipe – both for the Pie Hard fan club and for Waterloo.

Vivanda and I (Pipa) started out writing an article about our food tricks and pro tips at various restaurants around the county. The first one to make the list was Pie Hard — we wrote that we recommend getting their fancy sauce to dunk your pizza crusts into. But that one tip felt paltry and incomplete. So we ended up talking about the other things we enjoy about Pie Hard. We got so sidetracked by our devotion and enthusiasm that we decided to just write about Pie Hard. Especially because it would give us an excuse to eat there again — after all, there was a post about the chicken parmesan pizza sandwich featuring Gallagher’s Fried Chicken…

On a recent visit as Viv and I chatted with Megan, I tried to figure out what exactly it was that drew me to Pie Hard, time after time since they opened. Is it truly just about their fantastic food? The way their homemade kimchi brings out the best of the bulgogi ribeye and that they make an aioli with the gochujang? It’s beyond combining flavors. It’s far greater than making creative fusion dishes. The respect and deep appreciation for the global ingredients, combined with a true understanding of their provenance shines through in each of their pop-ups. And yet each item on the menu — the pie, the not pie, the salads — is so quintessentially their own, and they have such deep roots and wide branches throughout the community that I’ve come to associate this with Waterloo cuisine.

But I digress. What I’ve discovered so far about what makes me keep coming back to Pie Hard — and why I will always look at their upcoming pop-ups and special dates before making vacation plans with my family — is that Michael and Megan and their team are warm, welcoming and inclusive. I feel good when I walk in. It’s the first place my family and I bring out of town guests to. They actively promote other eateries in town. They’re how we found out about Stubborn German and Shorty’s when we first moved to Waterloo. They genuinely care about people and the community. And that’s something that feeds my soul – in addition to my belly.