Molly’s Meat Pies going strong

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This article was published 24/11/2021 (1793 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Claudia Kang has come to learn an important fact since taking over her business in 2012 — people love pies.

In 2012, Kang and her late husband, Ki Yong Park, bought the St. Boniface-based Molly’s Meat Pies (G-390 Provencher Blvd.) from previous longtime owners Maureen and Jim McKeown. Dec. 1 will mark Kang’s ninth anniversary at the helm of the business, and next year will mark Molly’s Meat Pies’ 40th birthday.

While Kang continues to try different menu items at certain times, she believes part of the longevity of Molly’s is the consistency of what it produces, which helps it retain many of its loyal, longtime customers who have an appetite for homemade fare with a strong British, Irish and French influence that’s made on-site.   

New on the menu this year, for example, are chicken curry pies and vegetarian pies, which are both growing in popularity, Kang said, and pumpkin pies and sugar pies are now available all year round, whereas they were available seasonally before. Among her most popular items are tourtières, steak pies, and chicken and vegetable pies.

Like many small business owners in the pandemic-era, the Linden Woods resident has had to adapt and pivot to keep her business going, and she’s thankful the restrictions have now eased to some degree. In terms of buyer behaviour, people have continued to shop for goods, not least when COVID-19 numbers were really late last year — they’ve just had to modify how they do it.

“Last December, we were so busy,” Kang told The Lance recently, noting Dec. 23, 2020 was the record sales day during her tenure at Molly’s. “We were baking eight to 10 hours a day and selling out. At one point, we had people lined up to the parking lot. Because we could only have a maximum of two customers inside, we’d have one customer — for example — that would buy 20 pies and distribute them to their entire family.”

Kang is for grateful for her loyal customer base, and she says some of have customers have become friends. When she lost her husband in 2019, she was touched by the outpouring of support she received from people in the community.  

 
“My husband worked so hard, and we’d always worked together side by side since we came to Winnipeg,” Kang said, noting their son also helps out at the business in between his studies.

“I’ve got to know many of my customers, and I’ve got to know some really nice people, some of whom helped me so much when my husband died,” Kang said.

A number of her customers even attended a mass Kang held for her husband when he was receiving treatment at St. Boniface Hospital.

In terms of her customer base, Kang — who hails from South Korea — said Molly’s receives lots of visits from British folks, as well as members of the local Franco-Manitobain and Chinese communities.

“Lots of British people come in for their Scotch eggs, pork pies, meat pies and potato bread,” she said, noting she’s working her way through a book about the history of Britain.

“It’s very interesting, but very long, as there’s so many kingdoms, so I’m still working through it,” she added, with a laugh.

Now, as the holiday season approaches and Kang prepares for another busy few weeks — both in terms of orders and walk in business — she hopes Winnipeggers will enjoy a pie or two along the way.

Go online at www.mollysmeatpies.com for more information.