There will be apple and lemon and all the other flavors that Hubig’s Pies lovers remember.

If all goes as planned, the fried hand pies will come in paper wrappers with a familiar crinkle and texture. They will be sold at grocery stores and gas stations and they will not cost an arm and a leg.

Yes, the wheels are turning to bring back Hubig’s Pies. The local treat has been missing for nearly eight years, ever since a July 2012 fire destroyed the company’s original factory in Faubourg Marigny. To hear from those pining for pies, however, they have remained at the top of their minds.

Andrew Ramsey, the next-generation owner of Hubig’s Pies, is keenly aware of the anticipation. Those hopes and cravings erupted anew last summer when the preliminary word of his comeback plan went around. Today, he and a small team are working through the steps of that plan.

Hubig’s has a new home — in Jefferson Parish. A new factory is taking shape within a nondescript warehouse just off Jefferson Highway, near the Huey P. Long Bridge.

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“We have the facility, we’re getting the equipment, we have the know-how. We’re getting the band back together,” Ramsey said.

Just when the pies will return to store shelves remains a fraught question for Ramsey, because his timeline is still subject to many variables. For now, he’ll say only that he expects to have pies ready to sell by summer.

He’s more confident asserting what the final product will be like when it does return.

“The next pie you have will resemble the last pie you had in every which way,” said Ramsey. “It’s going to be identical.”

In business since 1922, Hubig’s Pies became more than just a familiar flavor in New Orleans. Equally at home as grab-and-go treats at the grocery, the hardware store and the gas station, a Hubig’s pie was an inexpensive product that became part of New Orleans' daily routine, and thus ingrained in the hearts of a city that loves its rituals.

The company New Orleans knew, the one Ramsey himself knew from growing up in the family business, was based on practices, flavors and relationships formed over the course of generations. The challenge now is to re-create that all at once.

“To bring back a historic product is really something else,” said Kathleen Ramsey, the company’s brand manager and Andrew’s spouse. “We know it will be judged against a specific standard.”

To make it all happen today, the company is taking a different approach for some pieces of the puzzle.

The pie fillings had previously been made in the pie factory. Now, they will be made offsite by local commissary kitchens, using Hubig's longstanding recipes and even its old suppliers.

The lineup of flavors will be the same, with apple, lemon, peach, pineapple, chocolate and coconut prepared year round. As before, seasonal flavors will join the roster for limited runs, including blueberry, blackberry, cherry and sweet potato.

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Hubig’s handled its own distribution in the past, with a small fleet of vans and a team of salesmen working their routes around the metro area. When it relaunches, the company will begin distribution through Diamond Food Distributors.

They’ll start off in hundreds of stores, distributor Ricky Diamond said, including grocery stores, gas stations and convenience stores. Before the fire, his company handled Hubig's distribution outside the New Orleans area. Now it will get Hubig’s Pies into stores across its territory, stretching from Mississippi to Lake Charles.

“Where people once got a pie will more than likely be where they find them again,” said Andrew Ramsey.

The retail price per pie has not been set, but they will cost more than before the fire, when they rang in at $1.19. Andrew Ramsey said the price will reflect a gradual increase “as it would have had we been in business the last eight years.”

At the new plant, workers will make the dough, prepare the icing, form and fill the pies and fry them as before.

Before the fire, the plant produced an average of 25,000 pies a day. Andrew Ramsey said the new facility will have the capacity to exceed that number.

He and Charlie Lemoine, Hubig’s maintenance supervisor, have been assembling the necessary equipment piece by piece, tracking down specialized gear from suppliers and brokers and, sometimes, defunct old bakeries across the country.

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Parts are coming in from Switzerland for a vintage mixer, one of a handful of pieces recovered from the fire at the original plant.

On the pie-forming machine, a contraption as long as a sedan, the business end is a metal stamp that presses dough into the familiar oblong shape and hand-sized dimension of a Hubig’s Pie.

Kathleen Ramsey said every aspect of the product they return to the shelves has to measure up to the past. That even extends to the packaging.

The paper wrapper has to have the right feel and, as before, the company wants to stamp its logo and product information on them. While digital printing is the industry standard now, Kathleen Ramsey said the analog approach feels more like Hubig’s.

“We like the imperfections of the old way, because that’s the way people remember it,” she said. “We want your grandmother to be able to say, 'Yes, it’s the same.'”

+4 Ian McNulty: What explains the outsized allure of humble Hubig’s Pie? Our own past A Hubig’s pie was a humble pie. But it had a huge place in the heart of New Orleans. Want proof? Just look at the response when the first litt…