A New Orleans with No Hubig's Pie, 7 Days and Counting

It has been a week since the 90 year old New Orleans institution Hubig's Pie burnt down.  I was slated for the 6am shift for that Friday morning and as I groggily turned the TV on to the news I was quickly awakened with the then four alarm fire that had overtaken the factory.  By that time the front facade had already fallen, the roof caved, the insides demolished, it was already over.  It would become a five alarm fire in the next couple minutes.


On my bike ride to work I could see the smoke billowing into the awakening sky, breaking the news to drinkers outside La Peniche, I rode down Elysian to see Dauphine closed off by the 35 trucks and 95 firefighters on the scene.  
  

I work at a cafe on Frenchman and it was all anyone talked about, we sold out of the pies within thirty minutes of opening.  One of the buyers was me, and it was my first Hubig's Pie purchase.  It's in this picture, and I actually just ate it.   I don't own a microwave, per the packages instruction, but I warmed it in my oven, and it was delicious.  It reminded me of a famous Southern Italian delicacy I have had with delicious fried pastry filled with a fruit flavored cream, and finished with a perfectly sweat sugar glaze.


It's not about the pies as much it is about the institution.  Hubig's is something New Orleans takes pride in and it burning down right in front of them tore at a sentimental part of their hearts.  


I wasn't worried that my first Hubig's Pie buy was my last.  As my dear friend Kenneth, a New Orleans native, said when the subject of rebuilding came up, "Oh, Hubig's will be rebuilt, we will rebuild it."

And that is why New Orleans is incredible.