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Where Y’Eat: Why New Orleans Is In a Hurry to Get Its Hubig’s Pies Back

Ian McNulty
A Hubig's Pie from circa 2012, before its New Orleans pie factory was destroyed by fire that year.

A Hubig’s pie was a humble pie. But it had a huge place in the heart of New Orleans. Want proof? Just look at the response when the first little blip of good news on the future of Hubig’s hit the headlines.

It was really just a technical matter. In July, Hubig’s got approval for a small business loan guarantee program from the state, one step in the road to build a new pie plant. The company has been out of business since 2012, when fire destroyed its old factory.

Hubig’s is still finalizing its new location. After that, the family-run operation must build it, hire staff, resume production, rebuild distribution routes...on it goes.

But these are just details to the pie-deprived. Some were ready to throw a homecoming parade the second they saw the Hubig's name in the news again.

Why the hoopla? Hubig’s pies are just fried, fruit-filled hand pies, after all. It was an everyman, anytime treat, one you might pick up at a hardware store, equally at home as workday snack, fishing trip ration or after-school reward.

And that’s precisely why these little pies meant so much.

They were habitual in a town that worships its own rituals. And for a city accustomed to seeing its traditions repackaged and exported, a Hubig's pie was part of a steadfastly local routine, part of life as it was lived here.

Losing Hubig's pies elevated them to a sort of martyr status, something entwined with our own past, the memories that are always traveling away from us.

Maybe that’s a lot to pack into a handpie. But in a town that constantly talks food, anyone could be fluent in Hubig’s. Getting back something like that feels more valuable than ever today.

I think it can be summed up in three words: Hubig’s, please hurry.

Ian covers food culture and dining in New Orleans through his weekly commentary series Where Y’Eat.

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