History

from Memphis Magazine 10/01

In the early 1920s, a woman by the name of Rubye Keathley began baking pies for her husband, Maurice, to take to work, where he would share them with his fellow employees. Everyone thought they were so tasty that, one year, the Keathleys set up a booth at the Mid-South Fair and sold their pies. They did so well that they started a bakery in their own home, selling their wares to neighbors and local cafes. That was during the Depression, and even when folks didn’t have a lot of money to spend on things, they bought pies.

In 1932, Rubye and Maurice opened the Keathley Pie Company in the building on Young (above), expanding it over the years as their business grew. They soon began to produce small, 10-cent pies for vending machines, and by the 1940s were baking and selling pies to some 26 states. In fact, according to an old Memphis Press-Scimitar article, the Keathley Pie Company “became the largest baker of individual pies in the nation.” When the company moved a few blocks away to even larger facilities at 2151 York, they supposedly produced more than a million cakes and pies every week.

The Keathleys opened a restaurant at 2262 Young, called Keathley’s Town and Country Restaurant. In the early 1970s, the couple sold the business to a national company called Fairmont Foods. Just a year later that firm reported a significant profit and the president told stockholders, “We believe these continued quarterly increases are indicative of the basic internal strength of the company.”