A handmade touch at Lucky Moon Pies
Emily Kroner just wanted to get back to the basics when she opened the doors of Lucky Moon Pies in 2017.
“I always had an admiration for people that do from basic, and I admire hard work and I admire tenacity, and I don’t like shortcuts,” Emily said.
The self-taught chef developed a love for deep, rich flavors after spending some time in Europe between high school and college.
Back in the States, where store-bought pie crusts became readily available, Emily remembers listening to people complain about how difficult it was to produce a homemade crust. But, instead of just taking the easy way to completion, Emily rose to the challenge.
“I just started messing around with him at home,” she said. “They were hard. I can remember crying and yelling at my kitchen counter with pie dough all over it.”
But, practice made perfect; Emily quickly became known for her buttery crust that resembled what people remembered pie crust tasting like.
Patience became a virtue for Emily, who also eyed a 504-square foot shop located at 401 E. Oak Street. At the time, it was occupied by a coffee shop, but Emily put word in that she would like to rent the space when it became available.
“Sometimes once you state something out loud it sort of comes into fruition,” she said.
Nearly 12 years later, she opened Lucky Moon Pies with her husband, Fred, who had recently retired from the News-Gazette.
“I really enjoy the tinyness of the bakery, even though it constricts us and the amount of food we can put out,” she said. “I just love the little tiny.
“I would not be happy with Lucky Moon being in a strip mall with just a glass front. I know that works for a lot of businesses but I have didn’t ever imagine it that way.”
Baked goods, cakes and pies, wasn’t the only thing Emily wanted to offer.
“I enjoy sweets; not quite as much as Fred,” she said. “So I always wanted to have a non dessert item. Very soon after we opened, we began with a savory item for lunch or to pick it up for supper.
“We have quite a few clients that come in and they’re not dessert people,” she said.”They want savory; they want to main dishes.”
With menus posted daily on the Lucky Moon Facebook page and the ability to call in, customers often inquire when favorites like the chicken pot pie will be available.
The daily menu changes, sometimes based on Emily’s fancy and other times based on requests customers have put in. But, each day, Lucky Moon tries to have two pies, served by the slice, a tart or cake, cookies and a savory dish available.
“Friday is deemed cheesecake day,” Emily said. “So we always do that but lately I’ve been doing a three-layer cake in addition to the cheesecake on Fridays.”
Saturdays are special, too.
Lucky Moon’s hours run from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Wednesday to Friday, but Saturdays the shop is open from 8 a.m. to noon.
“It’s kind of a different sort of crowd that seems to come in on Saturdays,” Emily said.
The breakfast-focused menu usually includes cinnamon rolls, a quiche, biscuits, coffee cakes and an assortment of cookies or cupcakes.
“I still feel that the shop is sort of defining itself,” Emily said. “I’m trying to be a leader, but I’m trying to roll with it and see some of the requests that people make.”
Emily enjoys hearing from customers with requests, memories they carry from childhood that can’t seem to be reproduced elsewhere.
The “old timey” recipes, as Emily calls them, often come handwritten in hopes that she can recreate something a family member made at one time.
“The stress is on because they’ll say, ‘my sister can make this pretty well but I can’t do it.’ And then you hope when you can at least be as good as the sister,” she said.
“Some of those recipes are so old, they just have the ingredient list. They don’t temperature, they don’t have a time. So you just watch it like a hawk and you hand them the box when they come in. You just keep your fingers crossed.
“ I think it’s really special.”
Like always, Emily enjoys the challenge.
Last year, a man from Ireland came to Lucky Moon, asking if Emily knew how to make meat pies.
“He said that they would make in one end with meat from last supper, and other pocket would have some fruit.
“He said the miners would go down to the mine, they pull out this pasty, and you would start at the end with the meat in it and finish off with the fruit,” Emily remembered. “And so it’s all in one meal wrapped up in whatever they considered to be good pie dough.
“And I thought that would be so fun to try.”
Over time she’s learned, though, that things that would fly in other parts of the world or even the country don’t always work in East Central Illinois.
What has worked, though, is using locally grown ingredients to make pies and treats that people crave throughout the year.
At this time, the focus is on rhubarb.
They recently got rhubarb from Moon Grove Farm.
“It’s old mature rhubarb with nice big fat red stocks and it’s just lovely,” she said. “I have a few young plants on our property but nothing that can compare to theirs.”
Emily has also been highlighting lemon and strawberries in her treats lately while looking forward to the summer fruit flavors, like peach and berries.
Although Lucky Moon has always been a carryout establishment, both Emily and Fred miss seeing the faces of patrons as they would come in to pick out a treat for the day. Instead, they are taking phone calls and seeing people briefly while they deliver food to their vehicle.
Sometimes, those phone calls turn into a conversation the friendly conversation about the things worth chit chatting about.
While every business has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, Emily and Fred felt blessed that they had carryout in place, making the transition from in-person dining to curbside pick-up easier.
Navigating the new market place has not been easy, though.
With limits on the amount of product a person can buy, two dozen eggs or two pounds of butter at a time, Fred said that planning and preparing each week is becoming increasingly difficult to do.
“That’s been one of the challenges is just how often, how frequently, e have to go to the store and sometimes just for small amounts of things,” Fred said.
He reached out to corporate offices to see if there was a way around the limits, but the response he received was that it was up to each individual store.
“The stores here don’t want to do that, they want to limit everybody because they said, if somebody sees you going through with 10 pounds of butter other people will want to do that too. They won’t understand the distinction: he’s with a business and you’re just an individual,” he said.
“To make it fair and even for everybody, everybody has to follow the same guidelines.”
After closing to readjust the first week in mid-March, Lucky Moon reopened under the new guidelines provided by the State of Illinois.
Fred said that since then, some days have been as good as any day prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, but those days are happening less frequently than they normally do.
“Before we would have most of the days would just be what I would call pretty average,” he said. “Now we have some every days, but we have a lot more below average days than we had before.”
Lucky Moon was able to qualify for some of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans and has received money from the Visit Mahomet program to help cover some of the expenses related to employee pay, rent and utilities.
“Otherwise, at this point we would be putting in some of our own money just to keep things going,” he added.
Like many small business owners, the Kroners put the money they had into starting the business, making sure the kitchen was usable and met Champaign County Health Department standards.
Lucky Moon continues to need customers to be able to successfully operate, though.
Customers can find their daily selections on their Facebook page, but Fred said that many times, there are leftovers from the previous day available, too. Normally that product would be sold because patrons could come in and look at what was in the case.
Gift cards are also available.
“I do not want this to be the demise of Lucky Moon,” Emily said. “We will prevail. Even if we have to change our entire business form we will prevail.
“It’s a privilege that we’re in a business where people actually do need to eat, not that they need to eat cake and pie every day, but people get an appetite for something, and hopefully that will spur them on to come in.
“I would just like to let everyone know that we’re trying; we care about them, we care about their families, and we’re just all gonna ride this storm together.”
