As Whidbey as loganberry pie

For Joe Gunn, making the decision nearly a decade ago to take over his mother’s dessert business at the Greenbank Farm was as easy as pie.

Now for the first time, Whidbey Pies has a storefront in downtown Langley. Located at 111 Anthes Avenue, the new location is Whidbey Pies’ only customer-facing operation since the sale of its Greenbank Farm restaurant in 2020 to Old Spots Bistro.

“We missed having a face to the business,” Joe said, “and so it’s really nice to be able to have a retail shop where we have direct customer access, where we can chat with people, talk with them about pie.”

Jan Gunn started the handmade pastry business in 1986 as part of Whidbey Fish, a market and cafe in Greenbank that sold smoked salmon, crab cakes, chowder and other Pacific Northwest delights. Just down the hill from Whidbey Fish, the Greenbank Farm had a bountiful crop of loganberries, a blackberry-raspberry hybrid. At that time, the farm was the largest producer of loganberries in the world. The island even used to have a Loganberry Festival.

Then in the 1990s Whidbey Fish closed, but Jan’s pie-making continued from a commercial kitchen built onto the back of her Greenbank home where she fulfilled local and wholesale orders. The chance to reopen a restaurant, this time at the Greenbank Farm, arose in the early 2000s when the Port of Coupeville became the new manager of the historic farm. The space, however, was a former gift shop and lacked a kitchen facility, so Jan lobbied state legislators in Olympia with pie. Thanks to grant funding from the state, a kitchen was able to be built.

Joe recalls working for the business between the ages of 10 to 15, spending a lot of time making pies and eating pie dough.

“Growing up, my mom had always said, ‘This whole thing can be yours one day,’ and I never wanted it,” he said.

After graduating from South Whidbey High School, Joe moved off-island and studied photography in Santa Barbara, California, where he met his wife, Jessie. The couple spent about a decade in New York City before realizing they could find a better quality of life, and a more attainable future, on Whidbey.

Jan had a buyer lined up for the business when Joe called and told her not to sell it yet. He moved back to the island in 2014, and he and Jessie formally purchased Whidbey Pies in 2016.

Today the business produces about 150,000 pies a year. That’s close to one million slices of goodness.

A team of about 13 to 20 bakers make the pies by hand at Greenbank and Freeland facilities. Joe likes to say that Whidbey Pies employs people, not machines, to do the baking. The difference is significant. Even the packaging is completed using manual labor.

“If you want a perfect-looking pie, then grab a Sara Lee pie for $6.99,” he said. “But if you want a pie that is perfectly imperfect and tastes like your grandmother’s pie, then that’s us.”

Marionberry, cherry and apple are year-round staples of Whidbey Pies. Seasonal flavors include strawberry rhubarb, peach, blueberry and, of course, loganberry.

“It’s the pie I was raised on, and it will always be my favorite pie,” Joe said.

There’s little else that is as American as apple pie, or as Whidbey as loganberry pie.

Sadly, the Greenbank Farm no longer produces loganberries in droves. Joe explained that this is because the man-made, cultivated crop is extremely fragile. Whidbey Pies now sources the berry from a commercial grower in the region.

The recently opened Langley location offers the opportunity for Whidbey Pies to test new flavors.

“It is a different animal, a custard pie versus a fruit pie,” Joe said. “We really specialize in fruit. The Northwest being such an amazing place for fruit that it’s great to be able to showcase it.”

Fruit is sourced from the Pacific Northwest and flash frozen to preserve its quality. Pie crust is made with organic sugar and coconut oil.

“Anybody can make a filling,” Joe said. “It’s really the crust that counts.”

Besides whole 9-inch pies, customers can buy individual slices, pie crusts and frozen u-bake pies. On opening weekend, Joe was happy to supply a customer with a gluten-free slice of marionberry pie. That particular confection is made in partnership with 5b’s Bakery, a dedicated gluten-free facility in Concrete, Washington.

The Langley store was so busy its first weekend that pie makers had to do an emergency bake because more pie was sold than expected. The pie shop is located next door to Salty Sea Coffee, a match made in heaven.

Whidbey Pies can also be found at the Goose Grocer in Bayview, Payless Foods in Freeland and Three Sisters Market in Coupeville.

On the mainland, pies can be found in food co-ops, PCC Community Markets in Seattle, Whole Foods and other smaller markets around Puget Sound. SeaBear Smokehouse in Anacortes has a national shipping service that can send pies anywhere.

Joe and Jessie remain fans of pie, which they even had at their wedding. Their kids, who are 3 and 5, seem to share this generational love.

“Our kids eat probably more pie than the average person,” Joe said. “They don’t even think of it as a real dessert.”

As for letting his own kids take over the business some day?

“I won’t let ‘em,” Joe said with a laugh. “My mom almost didn’t let me, but I convinced her. I think it would be fun to see a third generation, but I hope that they go out into the world and figure out what they wanna do on their own first, and if it so happens they make their way back here, then great. I’m not going to push it on them.”

For more information, visit whidbeypies.com.