A favorite New Orleans confection is making a comeback seven years after a devastating fire ended production.
Hubig's Pies will be produced again next year in suburban Jefferson Parish, the Louisiana Economic Development agency said in a news release.
Hubig's made hand-sized turnovers with a glazed crust and fillings of chocolate, coconut or a variety of fruits. Sealed in waxy white and yellow paper wrappers, each emblazoned with a caricature of a chef known as Savory Simon, the pies were prominent for decades at retail checkout counters, including grocery outlets, drug stores and hardware stores.
A 2012 fire gutted Hubig's longtime bakery in New Orleans' Marigny (MEHR'-ih-nee) neighborhood. Production will resume in Jefferson Parish after a $1.37 million investment in a manufacturing facility, the Louisiana Economic Development news release said.
The release said Hubig's will distribute pies from the Louisiana-Texas line to the Mobile, Alabama, area.
According to a history provided by the economic development office, the Simon Hubig Pie Company began in Texas in 1922 and spread to nine other Southern cities. Only the New Orleans bakery survived the Great Depression.
Hurricane Katrina, which hit Aug. 29, 2005, temporarily knocked out production. Then came the 2012 five-alarm fire at the landmark building amid century-old homes in the Marigny area.
The state said Hubig's LLC has a small business loan guarantee from the state that will assist the company in securing financing for the Jefferson Parish facility from Hancock Whitney Bank. Hubig's also is expected to benefit from the state's Industrial Tax Exemption and Enterprise Zone programs.
In the state's release, Gov. John Bel Edwards hailed the revival of "a great culinary tradition."
The state said the project will create 14 jobs.
"We've been a New Orleans company since the 1920s. We buy local, hire local, and our main market is Louisiana," owner Andrew Ramsey said in the release.