more than a business or a building
Today, The Pie Safe is known far and wide. A couple of my siblings own and operate it, along with plenty of friends and family.
My older brother John, one of the owners, takes the entire crew (~20 folks) on special trips twice a year. Summer and winter. This is one example of how he treats the staff as genuine family—not just as a business cliche.
That kind of care trickles down. And it’s one reason why, despite the notoriously thin margins of the restaurant business, The Pie Safe has turned a good profit every single year since opening.
Care for your people, and they’ll care for your customers or guests.
reviving rural towns & buildings
Since The Pie Safe, we’ve restored Deary’s old train depot, opened an old-fashioned quilt shop, a farmstead butcher shop, and more.
We figured if folks were going to take time out of their busy lives to come visit us in the middle of nowhere, there ought to be an entire ecosystem to experience and enjoy.
When you come to Deary, you’re not just staying somewhere, eating good food, or visiting a cool restaurant. You’re stepping into a living story. A rural American town where life is slower, with a truer sense of community, and where beauty isn’t reserved for the wealthy.
How many other towns across America are waiting for someone to notice what’s special and still good and worth building on?
Experiential hospitality goes beyond lodging. It’s food, retail, events, culture—the full rhythm of how people spent their time—and where.
