Pie-Eyed

A decade after the pie factory burned down, Hubig’s returns to New Orleans

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There is a balm in Gilead. Hubig’s Pies, the hand-held fried fruit treat topping many Louisianans’ “ain’t dere no more” lists, are back in stores—sort of. At this writing, a decade of pent-up demand is combining with the final kinks in the company’s new production processes to cause bottlenecks and shortages. A catty sign to this effect on the front door of the Mid-City Rouse’s hinted at a Bolero-like refrain: “Y’all got Hubig’s? 

Nevertheless, spotty availability is way better than what Louisiana’s dessert aficionados have been used to. Hubig’s Pies—the unusual last name is Basque—began operating in Cincinnati in 1890, expanding to nine locations, mostly in the South, in the following years. The pie empire reached New Orleans in 1921, establishing a Marigny Rectangle factory on Dauphine. Before the Marigny became hip, the wafting smell of pastries helped landlords and real estate agents close their deals. In that same building the factory stayed, cranking out pies and outlasting its sister Hubig’s locations, as well as other New Orleans favorites: long after the last Dr. Nut was guzzled and the final K&B transformed into a Rite-Aid, Hubig’s stayed sweet. The pies were an easy shibboleth for newcomers to pick up: literally no one in New Orleans calls the sidewalk the “banquette” anymore, if ever they did, but once you have a favorite Hubig’s flavor, you’ve arrived in the city, and all you have to do is try them all.  (For me, the relatively-rare peach, with lemon as a reliable backup.)

The factory was walloped like everyone else during Katrina, though its position in the relatively high-lying Marigny meant it could have been worse. The factory’s return to production in early 2006 allowed for a few bites of normalcy during those jittery months of intermittent stoplight functionality. On July 27, 2012, a fire started in the fry room, and the greasy environs helped it quickly consume the whole building. Within hours of the fire, Andrew Ramsey, a member of one of the families who owned the company, vowed a return.

It took ten years. They lost the land where the original factory sat, which now hosts a cluster of attractively anodyne condos dubbed, perhaps tastelessly, Baker’s Row. Returns were intermittently teased over the last decade, but every attempt foundered—until this one. The apparently indefatigable Ramsey has been selling pies literally as fast as his crew can make them in their new Jefferson Parish facility. After the losses of COVID, the Katrina-like loss of both lives and the connection, rituals, and pleasures that make life worth the trouble, Hubig’s Pies are back just when we need them.

hubigs.com

[Find the link to the image above, at Flickr.com.]