CityView Magazine

food Pie Guys A father and son deliver sweet treats by the truckload P BY REBEKAH SANDERLIN eople literally cheer when the George Gil- mores walk into a room. It's easy to see why. The aroma of butter and sugar seems to waſt behind the same-named father and son as they make their rounds delivering homemade baked goods to customers around the region. As the co-owners of Uncle George's Pie Company, they de- liver sweet potato, pecan and coconut whole and mini pies, as well as butter pound cakes and lemon pound cakes, whole and by the slice, double chocolate chip cookies, brownies, muffins and single servings of banana pudding to customers from Lumberton to Raleigh, as well as to customers around the U.S. and all over the world. "We have a lot of military wives who order pies and cakes and then ship them to people around the U.S. and overseas," the younger George said. "One lady called us from Atlanta this week to say that she'd had one of our pies at a funeral and kept the label just so she could order from us." The father and son decided to get into the baking business last year aſter each had spent many years doing very different types of work. The elder George had pastored a church and driven 18-wheeler trucks for about 30 years before retiring. The younger George had worked locally in the mental health field. "I actually learned my baking skills from my mother," the elder George said. "She baked for people in the community and people used to request her pies. I was never really an outdoorsman so I stayed in the kitchen with my mom and watched her. All my life I said that when I retired, I would start baking. My son said he would work with me." Perhaps it was all those years driving trucks that gave George, the father, the idea that has most led to their rapid growth: the truck. The two men tend to get stopped when they're driving their truck around town, with it's bright blue logo and large picture of "Uncle George". (Uncle George, they said, is what everyone else in their large extended family calls the older man.) "We could have opened a bakery, but no one would have known where we were," the younger George continued, "but with the truck we can take the product straight to the customers." The elder George added, "The idea just came to me. It's good if you have a place, but if you take the stuff to the people they're more receptive." And though their business of making homemade, home- style desserts is as traditional as concepts come, the younger George turned to a decidedly newfangled funding source when they looked for a loan to purchase the truck. "We got the truck because of peer lending," he said, explain- Opposite: Father and son partners, both named George Gilmore, own and operate Uncle George's Pie Company together. CityViewNC.com | 31

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