The owner of a 100-year-old pie and mash shop has attracted customers from "all over the world" after taking the classic East End dish viral on TikTok.
Noted Eel & Pie House was established in 1926 originally in Bow before it was moved to High Road in Leytonstone in 1976 where it has remained since.
Alfie Hack is the fourth generation of his family to be running the pie shop.
However, the 28-year-old has come with a fresh approach - bringing an East End tradition back into the limelight via social media.
Under the username That Pie Guy, Alfie posts videos documenting the day-to-day running of the shop and his experience serving customers on Instagram and TikTok where he has amassed more than 165,000 followers across both platforms.
“I started doing five to 10 second videos, then I got the idea to do a 'day in the life' video which showed a bit more of me and behind the scenes of what goes on here," Alfie told this paper.
“It just snowballed from there really, I uploaded more and more and at first I hated my face and voice on camera but when you upload a video on Saturday and then someone comes into the shop on Monday saying they saw you on TikTok it makes it worth it.
“I’d be lying if I said I thought it'd get this big."
Alfie's great grandfather arrived in England on a barge from the Netherlands as a young boy in the early 1900s and lived with a family who had their own pie shop before opening Noted Eel and Pie 100 years ago.
Alfie took over the business last year but has worked at the shop since he was young.
He has generated 5.8 million likes on TikTok and his most popular video has been viewed 8.6 million times.
“It’s crazy what comes off the back of social media – people come in, try the food and enjoy it", Alfie said.
“We have our regular customers who have kept the business going for 100 years and we have families who had kids and then the kids grow up and come in.
“Then you get the newer Londoners who have moved into the area and come in for the first time and then return a few weeks later and it’s good to see.
“Then you get tourists – people from all over the country and the world. We always had tourists come in but we have seen a big increase in this since doing social media.
“We hear so many accents – American, Australian, New Zealand, Polish."
Although Alfie's embrace of social media indicates the move of an older tradition into newer times, the preparation and cooking methods used at the shop are very much in line with its origins.
He said: “Everything is done the same way it was 100 years ago – everything is done fresh on site.
“We make all the pies ourselves every morning – there’s a team of us making pies for two or three hours and then we’ll get the shop ready to open.
“We get all the meat in on the bone and we take it off and mince it ourselves so we know exactly what goes into our pies. It’s as fresh as we can get.
“We can even trace the meat back to the slaughterhouse and the day the animal was slaughtered."
Alfie said his ultimate goal is to continue operating the pie and mash shop for the foreseeable future as well as combatting the "misconceptions" surrounding the classic East End dish.
"A lot of people think it’s just for old English couples but I’d say come down to the shop any day of the week and take a look around – you have people from all different walks of life and cultures and ages.
“This is my life now and I’ve got plans to hopefully grow the shop and the social media.
"I do think I’ll always work for myself at the shop – I hope so anyway."
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