Cover Story: Crane’s Pie Pantry

By Dave Person david.r.person@gmail.com

It’s hard not to be cheerful when you are around the bakery-fresh smell of pie. “Most everybody (who comes in) is happy; we have a really awesome clientele,” says Rob Hagger, general manager of Crane’s Pie Pantry, Restaurant and Winery west of Fennville.

Credit goes to Hagger’s grandmother, Luetta Crane, who in 1972 started making and selling pies in the barn at Crane Orchards, which she and her husband, Robert, owned after taking it over from Robert’s father, Henry, who purchased the orchards in 1916. Luetta, better known as Lue, started making fruit baskets for their customers in 1967, and later provided them with meals she made in the kitchen of their home across M-89 from the barn.

When she moved her base of operations to the barn fi ve years later, she started by making apple pies, then branched out to chili and sloppy joes. Her original recipes for those are still being used. “My grandmother’s goal was always to make things comfortable,” Hagger says. The restaurant and bakery, which specializes in a variety of fruit-fi lled pies, with much of the fruit grown at the family orchard, continues to be located in the 150-year-old barn, which at one time was a horse stable and later housed tractors.

Robert and Lue had fi ve children, all of whom have played a part in continuing the family orchards, restaurant/bakery and a former bed-and-breakfast. Robert Jr. runs the 120-acre Crane Orchards on the south side of the road; Gary heads up Crane’s U-Pick on 100 acres on the north side of the road; Becky and Laura took over the pie pantry, restaurant and bakery from their mother; and Nancy, who works in the medical fi eld, ran the bed-and-breakfast for several year. “They all grew up here on the farm,” Hagger says, and then raised families of their own there.

“It’s a fun place to grow up and a great place to work,” Hagger says. Hagger, 37, who is Becky’s son, now manages the restaurant and bakery, although his mother and aunt are still an integral part of the operation. He taught third grade in the local elementary school for several years before taking over the restaurant and bakery operations in 2014.

He added a winery which produces 13 red or white wines and seven fl avors of hard cider. They, like the pies, are for the most part made with fruit from the orchard.

To meet the demand for pies and strudels, however, Crane’s pie pantry and restaurant often reaches out to nearby family farms, Hagger says, although he adds, “Anything that’s made from apples came from here.” When Henry Crane purchased the orchard it had apple, peach and cherry trees. It now also produces pears. Across the street at Crane’s U-Pick, blueberries, raspberries and nectarines have been added to the mix.

Hagger says Crane’s pies are available from grocers and at restaurants from Grand Rapids to Kalamazoo and in nearby communities along Lake Michigan. Sawall Health Foods was the fi rst business in Kalamazoo to sell Crane’s pies, and continues to do so. The wines and hard ciders also can be found at about 100 West Michigan locations. “We really want people to come here, if possible,” Hagger says. And while the orchard features seasonal activities such as a corn maze and pumpkin patch in the fall, the restaurant and bakery, which are open yearround, have their own attractions. Like many wineries, Crane’s offers wine fl ights, or small selections of different varieties, to customers. “I thought we should do a pie fl ight with the wine fl ight,” Hagger says, so now with four selections of wine or hard cider, customers can also get four samples of pie. The pie fl ight also can be ordered on its own. Lue died in January 2015, and Bob died in May of this year, but their legacy continues through their family. While Hagger represents the third generation at the restaurant, one of his nephews, Greyson Bale, 14, is undertaking more responsibilities there when he is not in school. A couple of 12-year-old family members also take their turn in the bakery. The orchard employs fi ve generations of the Crane family. Meanwhile, the bakery provides pies for 50-70 weddings a year, many of them in pastoral settings similar to Crane’s. “The barn-style weddings have been popular,” Hagger says. Crane’s bakery has the capability of producing hundreds of pies a day. “I think the record is 1,400 pies a day,” Hagger says. To make the job easier, the bakery has a peeler, slicer and dough press. “Everything else is hand made with a crew of 10 people on any given day,” he says. With Covid, the restaurant and bakery have had to scale back hours of operation. The restaurant is closed on Tuesday, but the bakery remains open every day. The restaurant provides outdoor seating, weatherpermitting, and live music on weekends. Hagger is excited about a two-day party in the works the weekend after Labor Day next year marking the 50year anniversary of the restaurant. “We’re going to have a big celebration in the orchard,” he says. In gratitude to the couple who started it all, proceeds will go to the Robert and Luetta Crane Scholarship Fund of the Fennville Educational Foundation.

The guests of honor, of course, will be the homemade pies that made it all possible. “We believe in dessert fi rst around here,” Hagger says.