Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 28, 1992 TAG: 9201280059
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG
DATELINE: WILLIS LENGTH: Medium
SLICE OF HEAVEN
If God has a sweet tooth, Les Puryear will have no problem squeezing through the Pearly Gates.That's because around these parts, Puryear is the fried-pie man.
Apple. Chocolate. Raspberry. Peach. Apricot. Blueberry. Blackberry. Sweet potato.
Oh, and lemon cheesecake, too.
"We used to make more kinds than that, but it got to be so many it was mind-boggling," says Puryear, who's at home among the flour and Tabasco sauce (which doesn't go into the pies, but on top of the other fixings here at Buffalo Mountain BBQ).
Though named for its main course, many people traveling through here know Puryear's as the place you can find some of the best fried pies this side of grandma. Puryear, being a restaurant man, likes to promote both.
And Puryear is the unequivocable restaurant man.
He tried retiring when he'd had enough of the "Yankees" in Florida and moved to a log cabin at the foot of the Buffalo. He stayed in the cabin. He didn't stay retired.
"I couldn't handle it," he says. "I was just going crazy. I love to cook and it's much easier to cook for 20 than it is for two."
So he opened this place. Friends back in Florida doubted he could make it with a restaurant so far away from, well, anything.
"But I know the restaurant business," Puryear says. "If you have good food at a good price, people will find it."
It's true, especially when the weather's good.
"We'll sell out of these pies on days like that," he says.
Whether they sell out or not, six days a week, from 7 a.m. to 10:30 or so, Puryear and a team of women can be found rolling, filling and frying those pies over a gas-burning stove.
"We make 150 to 200 a day," Puryear says. "We could make more than that." But it'd take a bigger crew, and more hours. And he's not quite ready for that.
"Everybody wants to cut corners these days but I won't let them," he says. "I want old-fashioned, homemade fried pies. That's why they sell."
And sell they do. Here at the BBQ, up the road at Slaughter's Grocery Store and the Floyd Express Mart. Over at a Cavalier Express Mart in Hillsville, and at the Cougar Mart in Pulaski.
Soon, they'll be where the Blue Star restaurant used to be; Puryear is taking over that space, too, and filling it with his family-style cooking.
Customers wander into the BBQ and pour themselves a cup of coffee.
"Hey, Les," one of them calls. "Can you put up a fresh pot?"
People are hesitant to interrupt this pie-making process, which seems to consume the kitchen.
"Um," one customer begins. "You wouldn't have a biscuit back there, would you?"
"Are you hungry?" Phyliss Thompson moves quickly and, with her dough-covered hands, whips up his breakfast. "Why didn't you say something?" she asks.
Thompson is the pie doctor on this rainy morning, taking pieces of dough and patching the places where the chocolate escapes the flaky crust.
"Chocolate are the hardest," explains Nancy Tessar as she places the pies in Denise Puryear's frying pan. "We all hold our breath when we make those."
Irmyl Branscome is in charge of the dough, working with a recipe she's had for years. She stands, kneading, coated in flour, while the other women banter back and forth.
"Sometimes we rub each other in the face with this dough," Tessar says, in a don't-repeat-this kind of voice.
The last time, Thompson apparently started it. She looks around mischievously, a bit of flour on her nose and cheek. But she keeps her hands on the counter.
"We take turns saying, you got some flour on your right side, you got some on your nose," Thompson said.
"White rouge," Tessar calls it.
She starts counting: 137, 138, 139. "We have enough."
A year ago, when they started this venture, they were making 10 a day. "We sold them all," Puryear says. "So the next day we made more, and the next day, more. Some people even come from out of town for them, and for the BBQ."
And that suits him just fine.
Yes, Puryear knows the restaurant business.