You may not know much about Dan Morrison Meat Pies.
After all, the company employs just a handful of people, and it makes its home in a nondescript building tucked away in West Valley City.
But if your family has roots in the Salt Lake Valley, chances are your parents, grandparents or great-grandparents feasted on Morrison pies purchased in restaurants, from grocery stores or from a cart on a downtown street corner.
The pies have been around practically forever. They were here before Coca-Cola. Before McDonald's. Before Kentucky Fried Chicken.
In fact, the meaty concoctions — basically beef in a pastry, often served covered in chili — have been a local favorite since 1883, before Utah was even a state.
They have survived family squabbles, changes in ownership, economic downturns and alterations in eating habits.
"It's like it has a personality of its own," Debbie Strong, a longtime fan of the pies and current office manager and marketing official for the company, said of the business.
And if the company's latest owner has anything to say about it, the pies soon will be much more than a little-known — if much-loved — Utah product.
"I was born and raised right next to the original Morrison Meat Pies plant," said Gene Tafoya. "I used to stare through the window and watch the pies being made."
Tafoya was one of 13 children in his family, he said, and the Morrison folks noticed him hanging around the shop. They told him they would give him some pies if he would pick up garbage and clean up around the plant.
That's when Tafoya's love of Morrison's pies began. It was renewed about 2 1/2 years ago when he stopped by the plant at 3403 S. 1400 West to buy a few cases to take home to California and fell into conversation with the shop's owners, who said they were struggling.
"I thought how sad it would be for a company like Morrison Meat Pies to no longer exist," Tafoya said.
He became a partner in the business in 2003, he said, and "the more I listened to the people coming in, the more I said, 'We've got to preserve this.' "
Tafoya became the sole owner of the company in April 2004.
"I've always worked for large corporations," like IBM and Xerox, he said. "My background is in technology. . . . Did I know anything about food? No.
"But marketing is marketing and sales is sales. This company, all it really needs is somebody to understand how to run a company."
The product has spoken for itself since Thomas Henry Morrison came to Salt Lake City from New Zealand in about 1880.
Morrison brought with him his family recipe for Scottish meat pies, according to the company's Web site. He and his wife started making the pies in 1883 in their own kitchen. They had a small cart, with hot bricks to keep the pies warm, that Morrison would push to downtown Salt Lake City each day, often taking up a spot at the corner of Main Street and 100 South.
The Morrison family soon opened a restaurant in the basement of the Utah State National Bank near that corner and later moved to a larger facility at 261 Reed Ave. (700 North) to keep up with demand. A second bakery opened on State Street and 1200 South, and the business was chugging along.
According to an Aug. 27, 1916, newspaper article, Morrison was turning out 120,000 meat pies a month and serving 2,500 customers a day.
Thomas Morrison eventually sold the company to his sons, but they fought over the business and split it in two.
Wendell Wagstaff's father-in-law eventually bought one part of the business, and Wagstaff bought that section in the mid-1950s, running part of Morrison Meat Pies until 1972.
"I sold it . . . and (the new owners) immediately tried to change the product and ran their end of it into the ground," Wagstaff said, leaving the other part to become the Morrison business of today.
Wagstaff now runs 44 KFC franchises, but he said he loved selling the Morrison pies.
"It was a really fun business to run," he said. "It had a real heritage. . . . My grandpa used to tell me that they'd go into town for the day, and at lunchtime they'd go and find Morrison on the street corner and buy a meat pie and have Morrison pour a little sauce on it, and they'd go down the street eating it."
Wagstaff said he thinks the pies were "the first fast food in the country. It was here before hamburgers came along."
And even in the 1970s, there was a "romance" about the pies, he said.
"Every time people came to town they'd come in, because they couldn't buy them out-of-state," Wagstaff said. "They'd buy them and take sometimes as high as 10 dozen back with them."
It may seem strange for people to have an emotional attachment to a meat pie, but Morrison's Debbie Strong said they do.
"When people come in here, they're always happy, because it's a really emotional, happy memory," she said.
"A lot of people would just die if the meat pies were going to be gone and they couldn't get them anymore."
The company has a "memory book" filled with comments from people who came from as far away as California, Idaho, Nevada — even Texas — to get the pies.
"We have been eating Morrison Meat Pies for 55 years June 1, 1949," wrote one couple. "The morning after our marriage we went to Morrisons for our first meal together."
Another fan wrote, "I remember these pies from my childhood. Grandma would get them for us kids, and we loved her and them. I just accidentally stumbled (on) the store after talking with my sister in California (where I reside also). We got to talking about the pies, and she called information (from California) and got the number. I'm a truck driver and took a bus and cab to get here from my semi for a case to take back to my relatives in California."
Such reactions convince Tafoya that Morrison Meat Pies can have a bright future.
The pies already have a place in many of the largest grocery store chains in Utah, as well as some in Wyoming and Idaho, he said. Sales have increased about 57 percent since he took over the company, and he is preparing to move into the California market.
"We're going to be a manufacturer rather than a little bakery," Tafoya said.
Wagstaff agrees that Morrison Meat Pies has potential for growth.
"It's a good little product," he said. "It's an all-meat pie. Served with a little broth or stew or chili it really becomes quite a full meal."
But from his "old man's point of view," Wagstaff said, a restaurant featuring the pies would be a good way to spur growth.
"Newer generations have kind of lost touch," he said. "That's the reason I keep thinking a restaurant built around the meat pie might be more of an advertising thing and still make money. . . . I think that would put it in front of the public a lot stronger. Once they've had it served to them the way it should be served, then they get an idea of what they could do at home."
But no matter how much Morrison Meat Pies grows, Tafoya said, he will not forget the company's heritage.
"My goal is to continue to stay in Utah . . . but to create a museum and let people know the meat pie is a part of Utah history," he said.
"It's sad a product like this hasn't had the support and recognition to share with the rest of the world. What I want to do is share it with the rest of the world."
E-mail: gkratz@desnews.com