We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Karina Davila. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Karina below.

Karina, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s been the best thing you’ve ever seen (or done yourself) to show a customer that you appreciate them?

Customer service and appreciation has always been extremely important to me. The best restaurants I’ve worked at have made it important to all staff to go above and beyond the customer expectation whether it be a candle on a slice of cheesecake for a birthday or giving customers a discount for waiting longer than usual for their food.

One thing that I do with my business, Georgetown Pie Co, to show my appreciation to our customers is our Pi Day Pie Hunt held on March 14th (3.14). We bake and hide numerous various pies throughout our downtown square area for customers to find for free. To claim, they just have to take a photo with their pie and tag us. This past March, my team set up a fun photo op complete with a balloon garland, we passed out pie vouchers, and gave away free t-shirts! I always enjoy watching the kids especially hunting for a pie with their parents.

I had a customer leave me this comment recently and it really moved me. Being apart of memories is such an honor and making someone’s day is our privilege!

“The last time you did Pie day, my son and I searched the Georgetown square. We actually found one, a Key Lime, it was the best pie I’ve ever eaten. My son was only two, at the time, and it made for an awesome memory walking around the square, holding his tiny hand, and looking for pies. Did I mention 3/14 is also my birthday? At this age, most birthdays just sort of blur. I rarely even celebrate my own anymore, but I remember this one because of you.”

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Karina Davila and I’m the executive pastry chef and owner of Georgetown Pie Co! I bake pies and poptarts out of a shared commercial kitchen space and sell at various farmers markets in Central Texas in cities such as Georgetown, Round Rock, Hutto, Cedar Park, Austin, Bee Caves, and Salado. I’ve been running my business for 3 years!

I started working in restaurants at 15 years old but really found my passion for baking at 16 during my culinary arts elective in school! With encouragement from my teacher, I went on to continue my education and graduated with an Associate of Applied Sciences in Baking and Pastry Arts from Austin Community College. I went deeper into my passion and traveled around the world to study from different countries and US cities. In Sorrento, Italy I worked at a mom and pop bakery learing how to make brioche, gelato, cream puffs, etc. I was awarded a scholarship from the James Beard Foundation and used it to fund my education at the International Culinary Center where I graduated from their Culinary Entrepreneurship program. It was an intensive program where we met with successful resturanters/food business owners and got to pitch our business plans to a panel of potential investors and industry professionals.

Every job I’ve held has been to make me well rounded for when I decided to start my own business. From barista to breakfast line cook to working in a vegan bakery to learn how to bake with dietary restrictions—it’s all been to make me better for my business. My dream is to have a storefront cafe/bakery one day, and I’ve come really close, but covid along with the nation’s economy has made it difficult and made me decide it’s not the best time right now. Hardships come hand in hand when you start and run a business. I believe our success not only comes from great customer service, high quality products, etc. but also the fact that the way our business is structured right now, we can be flexible with the times we are in.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

I started this business by investing $20 for ingredients and packaging then turning around and selling pies from that initial investment. I used that money to make more pies, selling them, and by the time about a month passed, I had enough to buy my tent, weights, etc. to start setting up at farmers markets. Everything from there has been purchased through soley the profits of the business.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

Georgetown Pie Co. did start as a side hustle at first. I was working in a restaurant where I had just stepped down from management because I wanted more flexibility due to having a newborn. Selling pies was just for extra income on the side plus doing what I loved. By the time my baby was 3 months old, I went to part-time work and part-time business. After 9 months I was working my business full-time. The start of 2022, my husband joined me full-time working the pie business!

Contact Info:

• Website: [email protected]
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/georgetownpieco?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/georgetownpieco/

Image Credits
Photos provided by Georgetown Pie Co and Todd White