Day Trips
Capt. Day Trips gets his pie on
By Gerald E. McLeod, Fri., Jan. 23, 2004
The Texas Pie Co. in Kyle doesn't make fancy foods. "We make the classics," says Julie Albertson. "We make good food like grandma used to."
A lot of people will recognize the pie company, Albertson, and Spencer Thomas (Albertson's partner in life, business, and baking) from their years in South Austin. And even if you don't recognize the names, there is a good chance that you have tasted one of their products if you have ever eaten a piece of pie in a restaurant or coffeehouse in Austin or Houston.
Albertson has been learning from her grandmother and mother in the kitchen since she was just a tyke. After a short career in the banking industry, she and a friend found a vacant pizza parlor in Wimberley they could rent just for the Christmas season to bake pies. "We did so well we decided to keep it going," Albertson says. The Wimberley Pie Co. was born.
Still in business and still making excellent baked goods, Albertson sold her share in the Wimberley company in 1989. "My partner [in the Wimberley Pie Co.] got married, and I got divorced," she says. She then became what might have been the state's only pie broker. The new owners of the bakery had to hustle to keep up with all of the orders she was bringing in from Houston area restaurants.
The restaurants loved not having to go to the expense of baking their own pastries. "I'd just give them a pie and business card," Albertson says. "I let the pies speak for themselves."
It wasn't long before Albertson was back in the baking business from her South Austin home. This time with Thomas as a partner. An accomplished musician, he met her at a gig at the Cypress Creek Cafe in Wimberley. He remembers their courtship as being driven by his magnetic charm; she has a different version: "I caught him with my buttermilk pie," she says emphatically.
Three years ago on April Fools' Day, Albertson and Thomas opened their downtown Kyle restaurant and kitchen for the lovelorn, lunch-hungry, and pie-starved public. The response has been phenomenal. It wasn't a case of being careful of what you wish for, because they would never have guessed that the business would triple almost overnight. During Thanksgiving alone, the couple sold more than 1,200 pies.
Once a quiet little farming community, Kyle has become a bedroom community for Austin and San Antonio, and the traffic in front of their shop can get quite congested in the evenings. "We catch them as they drive home," Thomas says of the commuters. Besides pies, the company sells sandwiches with a box lunch of sandwich, chips, and a cookie for only $5. On Thursday and Friday they offer hot lunches.
The pie company also offers six different entrées to go. The King Ranch chicken casserole is just spicy enough to be exciting and comes with creamy gravy lavished with cheese. The menu includes chicken potpie, chicken tetrazzini, cheese lasagna, beef Stroganoff, and quiche. Call ahead, and they will throw one of the frozen entrées into the oven to be ready to pick up on the drive home.
Of course, don't forget to take home a 10-inch or 5-inch pie. "My favorite is the chocolate fudge pie," Thomas says, "but I'm a chocoholic." In the name of research, I tried as many as I could. The cherry was tart and tasty, but the blueberry was heavenly with the natural flavor of the fruit dominating. The pecan pie was delightfully cinnamony with lots of nuts, almost like a piece of candy. You'll have to try the lemon chess, three kinds of pumpkin, buttermilk, strawberry-peach, and the other nine flavors for yourself.
The Texas Pie Co. is three blocks west of I-35 at 202 W. Center St. in Kyle. The coffee is always hot from 10:30am to 6:30pm on weekdays and 10:30am to 4pm on Saturdays. On Sunday they rest. The largest catering job Albertson has ever done was dessert for 2,400 people, and she can handle your next party. To have a casserole warm and waiting, order a holiday pie, or just to say hi, call her at 512/268-5885.
658th in a series. Day Trips, Vol. 2, a book of Day Trips 101-200, is available for $8.95, plus $3.05 for shipping, handling, and tax. Mail to: Day Trips, PO Box 33284, South Austin, TX 78704.
