Indiana Grown: Wick’s Pies
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Each and every Saturday, WISH-TV highlights a local company together with our partners at Indiana Grown.
This week, Dylan Wickersham with Wick’s Pies joins News 8 at Weekend Daybreak.
Dylan is the third generation of Wick’s Pies, which was started by his grandfather, Duane “Wick” Wickersham, in 1944.
According to the company’s website, Wick was making a delivery to a local factory in Winchester, Indiana, when he noticed employees would spend their lunch hour at the pub and return intoxicated.
Wick overheard plant managers complaining about how often workers would come back intoxicated and suggested that they open a cafe inside the facility so employees would stay on their lunch. Wick’s suggestion will embark on an opportunity to open a cafe — using his grandmother’s recipes — inside the facility and start The Rainbow Restaurant in downtown Winchester.
“My grandfather started the business in 1944 in a glass factory because the workers were getting drunk on their lunch hour, coming back to work drunk,” Wickersham said. “But fast forward to 1960, he started manufacturing, and he got a patent on sugar cream pie, and he’s really credited as popularizing the pie around the state.”
Wick’s Pies were recognized as having the No. 1 Pecan Pie and the No. 1 Pie Shell in the U.S. by the American Pie Council National Pie Championships in Orlando this year.
“It’s the years in the business, and it’s the time, knowing how to make a good pie shell and a good pie. And we use simple ingredients and no preservatives, and that’s what we did when we started,” Wickersham said.
Pies can be purchased in stores at Needlers, Fresh Thyme, Walmart, Kroger, and Meijer. To learn more about the history of Wick’s Pies, click here and watch the full interview above.