Thursday, November 26, has been waiting on the calendar for 237 years. George Washington’s 1789 proclamation named that exact date, a Thursday, as a national day of thanks, and this year Thanksgiving lands on the same square. Today is October 9, which leaves 48 days. A diner pie case, as it happens, makes a handy clock for counting them down.
What follows is a dispatch format rather than an essay: five stops on the way to the table, each tied to a date and each built only on sources that can be checked. Where a fact is old, the year is stated. Where no source exists, the post says so.
October 9: The Case Starts Doing Its Job
A rotating glass pie case is part furniture, part sales pitch. Writing for Tasting Table on September 1, 2026, Kat Lieu traces the habit to the lunch wagons of the 1800s, which sold pies from mobile setups before adding seats and, in 1924, being renamed dining cars. According to that account, pie suits the format for plain practical reasons: it can be baked ahead, held cold or frozen, sliced to order and served beside coffee at any hour, including at diners that run breakfast all day.
That last detail matters in October. A slice that works at 7 a.m. with a mug of black coffee also works at 9 p.m. after a high school football game, so the case does double duty precisely when the weather turns. For the coffee side of that pairing, the chemistry behind the bottomless cup is worth a read, and the crust question has its own post on lard versus shortening.
Late October: What Long Island Eats When the Air Sharpens
No public source tracks what every Long Island diner puts in the case in October, and this post will not pretend otherwise. Menus change by kitchen, by supplier and by the week. What can be sourced is the regional pantry. Discover Long Island, in a fall guide originally published October 28, 2024 and last modified September 24, 2026, lists ten seasonal treats for the island:
- Pumpkin pie
- Squash pizza
- Apple pie
- Sweet potato pie
- Caramel apple tart
- Zucchini bread
- Pecan pie
- Spiced cake
- Pumpkin bread
- Cornbread
Read that list as a map of the season, not as any one diner’s menu. Apples and squash come off local farms in autumn, while pecan and sweet potato arrive from the broader American Thanksgiving canon. A counter server is the quickest way to learn which of them a given kitchen actually bakes.
November 14: The Pizza That Called Itself a Pie
Then there is the one genuine viral moment of the season. In November 2024, Pino’s Pizza in Deer Park put Thanksgiving dinner on a pizza and watched the internet respond. Fox 5 NY reported on November 14, 2024 that the pie stacks turkey gravy, sausage and apple stuffing, turkey, mozzarella and dollops of cranberry sauce on a thick grandma-style crust. Co-owner Paul Barbieri explained the origin simply:
“We had a few extra turkeys, and everyone knows leftovers are better.”
Paul Barbieri, Pino’s Pizza, to Fox 5 NY
Scale followed fast. News 12 Long Island reported on November 22, 2024 that the post drew five million hits in two days, with some customers traveling for hours. Barbieri described the idea’s birth with a shrug: “the rest is history.” Fox 5’s reporting adds that early skepticism faded as more people tried a slice, and that a Thanksgiving calzone joined the lineup.
Fox 5 also posted the segment, in which reporter Jodi Goldberg tries the pie, for anyone who wants to watch the first bite. One honest caveat: Pino’s is a pizzeria, not a diner, so it belongs here as a sign of how far the word “pie” now stretches rather than as a diner menu item. Availability this year is not confirmed in the sources reviewed; the shop’s own site is pinospizzadp.com.
Thanksgiving Week: The Arithmetic Behind a Pie
Pie volume peaks in a narrow window, and the numbers explain why bakeries treat the week like a marathon. A Long Island Press survey from 2013, now more than a decade old and cited only for what it shows about scale, found Youngs Farm in Glen Head, founded in 1892, preparing about 3,000 pies during Thanksgiving week. At Loafers Bakery in Locust Valley, the stretch from mid-November to Christmas drove 40 percent of annual sales. Owner Lauren Foley called the holiday a rehearsal:
“Thanksgiving is our rehearsal for Christmas.”
Lauren Foley, Loafers Bakery, 2013, via Long Island Press
The grocery shelf tells a matching story. Instacart purchase data from 2024, reported by Supermarket Perimeter on November 7, 2025, ranked pumpkin first among Thanksgiving pies, followed by apple, pecan, sweet potato and cherry. Orders for the top five climbed through late November and peaked the day before Thanksgiving, with a smaller bump in late December. This year that peak day falls on Wednesday, November 25.
| Date (2026) | Stage | What the sources support |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 9 | Case season opens | Pie suits diners: made ahead, sliced to order, paired with coffee (Tasting Table) |
| Late Oct | Fall pantry | Pumpkin, apple, pecan, sweet potato, cornbread on a Long Island fall list (Discover Long Island) |
| Mid-Nov | Viral Thanksgiving pie | Pino’s Deer Park pizza, reported in November 2024 (Fox 5 NY) |
| Nov 25 | Peak pie-buying day | Day before Thanksgiving, per 2024 Instacart data (Supermarket Perimeter) |
| Nov 26 | Thanksgiving Day | Same date and weekday as Washington’s 1789 proclamation (American Heritage) |
November 26: A Date With a Long Memory
The article American Heritage published on Thanksgiving dinner during the Revolution captions the proclamation as designating Thursday, November 26, a national day of thanks, issued October 3, 1789. It does not describe what anyone ate that day. Its menu comes earlier, from a 1779 letter by Juliana Smith, and it reads like a diner case with a powdered wig: mincemeat pie, pumpkin pie, apple pie, Indian pudding and plum pudding. Smith wrote that the pies and puddings “lacked for nothing save Appetite.”
Two and a half centuries on, pumpkin and apple still sit near the top of the list. The crust may have changed hands from cook to bakery to cooler at the supermarket, yet the cast of fillings has barely turned over.
What to Ask at the Counter
Since no outside source can say what a particular kitchen has in the case, the best research method is the oldest one. A few questions do the work:
- Which pies are baked in house, and which arrive from a supplier?
- Does the case change once Thanksgiving week begins?
- Can whole pies be ordered ahead, and by what cutoff date?
- Is a seasonal slice or a savory option on offer this month?
Candy hunters get a parallel treat in October, since the history of candy corn turns out to be stranger than its reputation, and the automat story shows where the glass-fronted food case came from.
Questions People Ask
What day is Thanksgiving in 2026?
Thursday, November 26, 2026. That matches the date and weekday named in Washington’s 1789 proclamation, per American Heritage.
What is the most popular Thanksgiving pie?
Instacart’s 2024 purchase data, as reported by Supermarket Perimeter, put pumpkin first, then apple, pecan, sweet potato and cherry.
When do Thanksgiving pie orders peak?
Per the same Instacart data, the day before Thanksgiving, which is Wednesday, November 25 this year.
Did a Long Island pizzeria really make a Thanksgiving pizza?
Yes. Fox 5 NY and News 12 Long Island both reported on Pino’s Pizza in Deer Park in November 2024.
Sources
- Tasting Table, “Why Old-Fashioned Diners Serve Pie” (Sept. 1, 2026)
- Discover Long Island, fall treats guide (published Oct. 28, 2024)
- Fox 5 NY, Pino’s Thanksgiving pizza (Nov. 14, 2024)
- Fox 5 NY video, “Long Island pizzeria selling Thanksgiving pie”
- News 12 Long Island, Deer Park restaurant goes viral (Nov. 22, 2024)
- Long Island Press, Thanksgiving bakeries (Nov. 27, 2013)
- Supermarket Perimeter, Instacart Thanksgiving trends (Nov. 7, 2025)
- American Heritage, “Thanksgiving Dinner During the Revolution”
- Pino’s Pizza, Deer Park
