By Linda Taaffe
 Photo Courtesy of Richard Lampner |
Los Altos native Richard Lampner traded in his 10-year filmmaking career for pie making
A simple slice of pie from an out-of-the-way shop after work one day prompted Los Altos native Richard Lampner to make such an epic change in his life that family and friends called him crazy. The Hollywood producer traded in 10 years of filmmaking for pie making, despite his lack of business and baking experience.
Lampner, who now owns the Monterey Bay Pie Company in Monterey’s historic downtown with his wife Francine Flores, admits that his career change did appear to be a crazy idea at the time.
“We were interested in getting into our own business,” Lampner said. “We wanted the American dream. I put that together with my love of pie. I really love pie. … One of my wife’s earliest memories of me is going to Marie Callender’s after (high school) football games.”
Lampner’s visit at that out-of-the-way pie shop in 1997 put the pieces for his business plan together. He realized that pie had become a neglected product. That gourmet pie shop served pies the way his grandmother cooked them - by hand, with good ingredients and without “fancying it up,” he said.
When he told the owner of the shop his plan, the owner invited him to dinner, telling Lampner, “I think I can help you.”
Lampner and Flores, also a local native, spent the next three years scouring Canada and the United States, studying the lost art of pie making. The couple wanted to find the best recipes and techniques.
“People were very generous, telling me anything I wanted to know,” Lampner said. There are about 10 to 15 pie shops in the United States that Lampner said he considers make traditional, great-tasting pies.
Simple recipes with few ingredients and low-tech techniques were common in all of those shops, he said.
“Less is more,” he said. All a good pie needs is fruit, flour, sugar and a great crust.
Lampner said he and Flores became pie experts pretty quickly after having to make about 100 pies each day for their new company.
“We found some things out by accident,” he said. “We picked up other techniques through blissful ignorance.”
Their best-selling pie, raspberry-cherry, was created when Lampner and Flores accidentally dropped some cherries in the raspberry pile.
The pie company specializes in whole fruit pies using locally grown ingredients. Their specialties include: Holiday Pumpkin Pie, Otter Bay Olallieberry, Pebble Peach-Apple and Watsonville Strawberry-Rhubarb.
Lampner said they make all the pies almost exclusively by hand, using an electric mixer and machinery only to press the dough.
Lampner expects to make about 6,000 pies between Thanksgiving and Christmas, about double the amount compared to other times of the year.
He said their pie business has gone through the roof since the economic downturn.
“I didn’t expect that. I guess the simple pleasures of life remain important in times like this,” he said.
Lampner said he and Flores hope to become a fabric of the Bay Area, catering exclusively to the area.
“We don’t want to become a big pie corporation, like a Starbucks or Krispy Kreme,” he said.
Their handmade holiday pies became available locally this winter at Andronico’s and Draeger’s food stores in Los Altos and at Piazza’s in Palo Alto.
The couple specifically chose to sell pies in Los Altos because of their early roots in the city. Lampner attended Montclaire Elementary School and met Flores at Cupertino Junior High, where both were students.
They began dating while at Homestead High School.
The Monterey Bay Pie Company is located at 481 Alvarado St. For more information, call (831) 656-9743.
