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PAUL’ S POT PIES CELEBRATES 3 6 YEARS
OF COMFORT FOOD CARRYOUT
JUNE 2020 | COBB LIFE 21
Pot Pie PLEASANTRIES
STORY AND PHOTOS BY KATY RUTH CAMP
AH, COMFORT FOOD. We could all use a
little bit of it these days, and with the dishwashers
and pans getting more use than ever
due to stay-at-home ordinances, comfort food
that we DON’T have to prepare, well, that’s
even better.
Enter Paul’s Pot Pies. You’ve got your
Shepherd’s Pie. You’ve got your Chicken Pot
Pie, of course. You’ve even got your Sloppy Joe
Pot Pie, and an ever-changing menu of
goodness tucked inside a flaky, buttery,
freshly-made crust. Just pick it up, pop it in the
oven for about an hour, and you’ll feed the
whole family with a home cooked meal
without ever breaking out the cutting board.
And it’s all made by hand by a Jersey boy, but
we won’t hold that against him since he’s called
Marietta home for more than three decades.
Paul Lubertazzi, owner and chef of Paul’s
Pot Pies, started the business in 1984 with his
mother, Patricia, as a catering company called
Traveling Fare Catering. Having worked for
IBM (which brought her to Atlanta from New
Jersey), she had the sales background and Paul,
24 and newly-graduated from culinary school,
had the culinary background.
They rented a tiny little retail space on the
Marietta Square to run their business, which
they still call home today, though its seen a few
changes over the years. At first, Traveling Fare
was just a catering and takeout business, but
when they added a
few tables for
sit-down service,
they started selling
their popular chicken
pot pies by the slice, along
with a few other lunch food
staples like quiches and salads.
“Chicken pot pie was always our biggest
seller, so we added a pot roast pie and a
jambalaya pie so we could offer people three
different flavors,” Paul said. “And it was always
the biggest-selling item. If we served 70 people
one day, probably 50 of them had pot pies, by
the slice. And then one day, maybe 15 years
ago, a customer came in and said, ‘Can you
send me a whole pie?’ I was like, ‘Sure, why
not?’ And that’s how it started. She came back
like two weeks later, ‘Oh, remember me? You
made me a pie. Can you make one for me and
my friend?’ ‘Okay.’ It just took off word of
mouth.”