Do you pledge allegiance to Key lime pie?
The zesty dessert is the essence of summer captured on a plate, with every forkful bright, refreshing and full of nostalgia.
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Fans are fiercely passionate about their favorite — whether it’s a big restaurant slice, or a whole pie from a produce stand, whether it’s crafted in a bakery or made with love in their own kitchens. But most seem to agree that the magic comes from the precarious balance of flavors: a velvety sweet, mouth-puckering tart filling held up by a crunchy crust and adorned with a melt-in-your-mouth whipped topping.
As part of our Best of South Florida Dining series, we asked you, our readers, to tell us the best spots for Key lime pie in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties and, after tallying nominations, got to five finalists. They were, in alphabetical order:
• Bob Roth’s New River Groves, Davie
• Gilbert’s 17th Street Grill, Fort Lauderdale
• Joe’s Stone Crab, Miami Beach
• Publix Super Markets, multiple locations
• The Sticky Bun, Deerfield Beach
Now it’s the moment of truth.
After counting a week’s worth of votes, it’s clear that one Key lime pie maker squeezed out the competition … Bob Roth’s New River Groves!
The response
“It’s really nice nice to know that everybody supports us working hard and making these pies with love. If we have to, we’ll stay up all night making pies,” said Lisa Roth, vice president of the farm stand and open-air market established more than 60 years ago by her parents, Bob and Terry Roth.
This isn’t the first time their Terry’s Famous Key Lime Pie — named after the late family matriarch who first whipped up the recipe in her kitchen — has won praise from the community.
“Every time there’s a contest, we wipe it out,” said Bob Roth, who now lives in Eustis but visits South Florida every month. “We’re very fortunate we come in first. Anything we can attribute that to is because we keep trying. The only way to stay in business in this day and age is to come up with new ideas.
“This has been the greatest thing going for the family.”
While the competition is stiffer than a meringue peak, Lisa Roth said her family’s recipe sets the standard here in South Florida.
“They can’t beat our taste, our flavor that my mom made so special,” she said. “So it’s just really a great feeling that people are still coming in to get her pies.”
Talking about Terry
When Terry Roth hunkered down in the kitchen to craft a Key lime pie recipe that would help keep the family’s agriculture business afloat during the off-season, she had no idea just how significant her culinary contribution would be.
“We’re fortunate mom did starting making these pies,” Lisa Roth said. “If it wasn’t for her, you know, with the citrus industry the way it is, we don’t know what may have happened.”
She called her mother, who died in 2002 at age 55 from lung cancer, a “legend in the area.”
A picnic pavilion was dedicated by Davie officials on May 20, 2003, in her honor, and she worked with then-state Sen. Debbie Wasserman Schultz to have the Key lime pie considered a Florida symbol, according to a Sun Sentinel report at the time. (Key lime pie was officially designated the state pie on July 1, 2006.)
“My dad had to close in the summertime and find odd jobs, but fortunately because my mom started these pies we had to start staying open because people wanted their pies in the summer as well,” Lisa Roth said. “He had to do whatever he could.”
Coming up with the perfect recipe wasn’t, well, as easy as pie.
“She couldn’t find one that had an even taste of tart and sweetness, and she worked very hard to find the right recipe and the right quantities to add to the pie,” she said. “You know, everybody thinks it’s simple. They think it’s just an amount of condensed milk and amount of Key lime juice, but that’s not how it is.”
They started out by putting five pies on the shelf one day.
“I remember as a kid, I was 7 or 8 eight years old, and we brought them up to the store and we put them out front and the five sold,” she said. “People came back the next week for them, and we had to run back and make more. It was just progressively getting more and more busy.”
Now, the Roths estimate they sell about 30,000 Key lime pies every year, with 15 employees dedicated to churning them out during the season, and four or five on pie duty the rest of the year.
The pie process
Making pies at Bob Roth’s New River Groves is a team effort that includes some employees taught directly by Terry Roth.
“Some of them have been here 30 years,” Lisa Roth said. “They know how she wanted it and everything had to be perfect, and they make it that way.”
While they do have Key lime trees on the property, it’s not enough to keep up with demand, she said, so they also have a company that bottles the juice they use.
Here’s how it works, according to Bob Roth:
“We set up an assembly line in the kitchen. We have somebody doing the the filling itself. It’s got to have just the right texture. It’s got to have the right timing. It’s got to have the right sweetness and tartness,” he said.
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“And then, they pour it into the graham cracker crust we make. Then, we put the cream on top (a non-dairy whipped topping) and it’s got to be the exact design Terry came up with. She used to originally fork the pies and each one would be a piece of art, but now we can’t make them fast enough. So we just swirl it around on top, and it’s our own little technique.”
What’s new at New River Groves
Shoppers can pick up fresh fruit, juices and smoothies, soups, boiled peanuts, coconut water, homemade fudge and other pie flavors, including chocolate mousse, banana cream, apple, pecan and blueberry. They also ship fruit, gift baskets, cakes, chocolates and Key lime pies, among other items.
Want Terry’s Key Lime Pie recipe? Find it on the bottles of Terry’s Key Lime Juice, available online or at the store.
“It’s three 16-ounce bottles that we can ship all over the country. Some people buy it in 5-gallon buckets,” Lisa Roth said. “They can buy it themselves and make the pie. We’re also starting to get our Key lime pie filling out there where they can make their own pies.” (She plans to make the filling available to ship as well.)
They also sell Key lime pie in a jar or a cup and tart-sized versions for catering.
“We come up with all different sizes to satisfy our customers,” she said. “You can buy it in the jar, where it lasts in the refrigerator for a long time. If they don’t use it right away, they can take it on the plane with them.”
But the Roths are most excited about their seasonal Key lime pie flavors that use ingredients from their groves and give a nod to different holidays. They produce a pumpkin version in November and strawberry for Valentine’s Day.
Once spring rolls around, they add a fresh glass of orange juice to the Key lime pie, which makes it taste like orange creamsicle, and a new favorite is born, Lisa Roth said.
Aside from the original version, their mango Key lime pie is the one in highest demand — made, of course, with mangoes from their grove.
“People can’t wait for it,” she said. “They come in asking: ‘Did you start making them?’ … And we have to tell them, well, the mangoes aren’t quite ready yet.”
What the fans said
Fort Lauderdale resident Linda Danoff has been buying Terry’s Key Lime Pie for decades, according to her nomination form.
She shared this story: “Once post pandemic, I hand carried a Key lime pie in its distinctive box through the airport only to have comments from travelers and a Southwest pilot that they want my pie. Everyone stated, ’It’s the best!’ Florida’s state pie was enjoyed in Annapolis, Maryland.”
Matt Shoelson, of Cooper City, wrote that “Bob Roth’s New River Groves has my favorite Key lime pie because it’s the perfect combination of sweet and tart.”
He added: “The whipped cream tastes like it was pulled straight from a cloud and the crust melts in your mouth like a buttery graham cracker.”
Davie resident Scott Schneider couldn’t agree more with all the praise. “Always fresh with the right amount of tart” is how he summed it up.
“It’s not just me that thinks it’s the best,” he wrote. “I always bring them to various gatherings and everyone loves it. I won’t eat Key lime pie from anywhere else.”
Reader Anne Bosworth said she drives “all the way from Pompano for this beautiful pie!”
In her nomination form, she wrote: “It’s consistently fresh and delightfully homemade. If Aunt [Bee] from ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ was from Florida, this would be the pie she’d make and win prizes with … There’s no fresher, more balanced Key lime pie in South Florida.”
Bob Roth’s New River Groves is at 5660 Griffin Road, Davie. Visit newrivergroves.com.
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