![_MG_9403.png _MG_9403.png](https://memphismagazine.com/downloads/15766/download/_MG_9403.png?cb=2e8a53c4224923e4913b33f20be83120&w={width}&h={height})
The Kahlua pie at Paulette's. Photograph by Justin Fox Burks
I first encountered the famous Kahlua pie or “K-Pie” at Paulette’s Restaurant when I ran into my neighbor at the restaurant back in the 1970s. She was wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat and eating a mammoth, six-inch-or-so-tall slice of Kahlua pie — by herself. She wasn’t sharing it with anyone. That was simply astonishing to me.
A full Kahlua pie — I was told by Paulette’s co-founder George Falls — weighs six pounds.
That was when Paulette’s was in Overton Square. The restaurant moved years ago to Harbor Town, but Kahlua pie still is on the menu.
“I think it and the hot chocolate crepe are the one and two [best] sellers,” Falls says.
Asked where the pie came from, he says, “Paulette herself started it.”
That was Paulette Fono. “She was my partner originally.”
Fono was a founder of The Magic Pan, a fast-food creperie chain based in San Francisco. “She sold the concept to Quaker Oats Company,” says Falls. “After that, I called her and asked her to come to Memphis and build a restaurant.”
What kind of restaurant? “Whatever she wanted it to be,” he says. “I’m serious. I’d been so fascinated with her Magic Pan concept that I thought, ‘Well, she can do something like that in Memphis.’ So, that’s what we did. We stayed together about three years, and then I bought her out.”
The original restaurant, which opened in 1974, was “a bistro concept.” The menu included crepes and Hungarian cuisine, “because she was Hungarian.”
Kahlua pie was on the menu from day one. “It was on there when we opened the doors.”
The full name of the pie is Kahlua Mocha Parfait Pie.
“I just remember it was the biggest dessert I ever saw,” Falls says. “And it made a statement any time a server walked through the dining room with it. Everybody said, ‘What is that? I want one, too.’
“The crust is pecan, butter, and coconut. And the ice cream is coffee ice cream with crushed toffee in it. It’s topped with whipping cream and a jigger of Kahlua. The Kahlua is optional.”
Servers began calling it “K-Pie” — a name customers now use when referring to the dessert.
The pie never was intended to be shared, Falls says. “No. It’s never said ‘for two.’ We’ve never put that on the menu. But people do try it and they’ll share.”
Sometimes four people share one slice, he says.
The pie originally sold “in the $2 range,” Falls says. Now it sells for $7.05.
Why has Kahlua pie endured for more than 45 years? “I guess it’s a combination of the flavors,” says Falls. “It’s the Kahlua. It’s the crunch you get. It’s the coffee flavor. And it’s the crust. People just love that. It’s just a combination of all those things that make it work.”
Paulette’s Restaurant is at 50 Harbor Town Square in The River Inn of Harbor Town; (901) 260-3300.