I wanted their pie, craved the mile-high fruit-filled pastry. Apple, chocolate pecan, cherry crumb, blueberry, banana cream, chocolate cream and Key lime pies: yummy. The crusts are always buttery and flaky, hand-rolled and pressed into the baking dish. Each pie is overstuffed with fruit or nuts, stretching the pastry dough to the limit, then baked to a golden doneness. I dream about these pies.

I was delighted to review the Palo Alto Creamery at Stanford Shopping Center, not only for the occupational permission to eat pie, pie and more pie, but to also to get a feel for the retro diner/restaurant with deep Palo Alto roots.

Entering, I spied a pregnant waitress wielding a coffee carafe from table to table, refilling any cup that needed a few extra drops. She conveyed the feeling of a small-town diner, a community gathering place where everyone goes at least once per week. One would almost expect to see the village mayor, barber, police chief and mechanic gabbing away at the counter, all leaving with full, satisfied stomachs.

Rob Fisher bought the Palo Alto Creamery in 1988. The still-thriving original diner, downtown at the corner of Emerson Street and Hamilton Avenue, dates to 1923 and still handles all the baking chores for both locations. The Stanford rendition opened in 2001, shortly before the Sept. 11 attacks.

"The timing couldn't have been worse," Fisher lamented, "but, like everyone else, we got through it."

Fisher was reared in Connecticut, not all that far from the 1872 birthplace of the American diner. The menu reflects the simple good foods he was raised on and that old-fashioned diners are noted for.

"It's simple food done well," Fisher said. "We're not reinventing the wheel. We serve basic, everyday food you can feel comfortable with. And, we try to make everyone welcome. It's a safe haven."

Fisher, a Cornell University restaurant management alum, was in charge of a Bay Area restaurant chain when a chance meeting led him to purchase the Creamery restaurant from Diane Naylor who had bought it from the Santana family, originators of the business.

After a dozen years of operation on Emerson Street, Fisher winced at the long lines to get into the restaurant.

"Forty-five minutes was too long a wait; I knew we were losing old customers. At the height of the Silicon Valley boom, our regular patrons couldn't get in. I knew it was time to open a second, nearby, location."

As at any good diner, operating hours are long. The Stanford restaurant is open 83 hours per week for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The menu is nearly as long as the hours of operation, with more than 100 items. With innumerable permutations, combinations and variations, the menu is seemingly infinite.

The exterior motif is a la Stanford Shopping Center. Inside, though, the decor resembles a traditional diner with pressed-tin ceiling tiles, overhead fans, colorful floor tiles and the ubiquitous jukebox. There are teal- and grape-colored banquettes and swivel chairs at the counter. Near the front door sits a display cabinet that showcases those magnificent house-made pies — enough to drool over.

An umbrella-shaded outdoor patio is equipped with overhead heaters and a brick fireplace for dining al fresco. It's a great place to eat (pie), daydream or watch well-appointed ladies on their way into or out of Bloomingdale's.

I felt it a duty to try at least one of the dozen burgers offered. I was not disappointed with the Atomic Burger ($9.95) with jalapeno relish, pepper-jack cheese, grilled onions, lettuce, tomato and pickle.

All burgers are one-third pound and made from hormone-free Angus beef. Mine was served on a toasted house-made bun with appetizing french fries that were crisp on the outside and fleshy on the inside. The burgers are competitive with both those at Jeffrey's Hamburgers and The Counter in quality and size.

The BBQ pork sandwich ($9.95) was a generous heap of pulled pork mounded on a toasted bun. Pulled pork is a long-cook, low-heat method of barbecuing. The meat was aromatic and I caught a whiff of it over my shoulder before the waiter plopped it front of me. It reminded me of the cozy scents of my mother's kitchen on bone-chilling winter days.

The cup of chili ($4.25) was loaded with beef and black beans, the perfect antidote to a rainy day. Slightly less successful was the spinach soup ($3.95), which was a tad shy on flavor.

Additional dinner menu items commence at 4 p.m., yet many of the dinner plates, like breakfast, are available all day. One such plate, the fish and chips ($11.50), was made from tilapia fish, a mild tasting, farmed, sustainable fish whose consumption in the U.S. has quadrupled since 2003.

Some plates didn't quite click. The Southern-fried chicken salad ($11.95) was lackluster. The chicken was tender but the corn, pecans and spicy ranch dressing weren't enough to spark the plate.

Pies ($4.25 per slice, add $2 a la mode) tell only part of the dessert story. There are also cakes, brownies, cheesecakes and cookies. The fountain treats ignited the salivary glands. Milk shakes ($5.50) were thick and luscious. Other options were oozing banana splits ($8.25), shimmering ice cream sundaes ($7.50) and dense egg creams (that don't actually have any egg) for $4.25. There were nearly two dozen ice cream flavors from which to choose.

One midday, at an adjacent booth, I overheard snippets of conversation between a young lady and what looked to be her octogenarian grandmother.

"This is the way food used to taste," the elderly lady said, "and the way I used to make it. I can understand everything on the menu, too. So glad you invited me."

The young lady opted for cherry crumb pie for dessert while her grandmother went with the apple. Good choices.