In southern Utah, Thanksgiving dessert is not something you buy. It’s something you reserve.
Twenty minutes apart on the St. George side of the state sit two small, stubbornly old-fashioned pie shops: Veyo Pies, in a town of fewer than 500 people, and Croshaw’s Gourmet Pies, a St. George institution since 1991. Both are locally owned. Both bake by hand, in small batches, from recipes that were old when the interstate gift shops were new. And both can only make so many pies.
That last part is the whole story. A grocery store can always bake more. These two can’t — so every November, their order books fill, their cases empty, and somebody in Washington County ends up explaining to the table why there’s a supermarket pie where the Veyo Volcano was supposed to be. This is the race. It is on right now. Here’s how to be on the right side of it.
The two shops at a glance
Veyo Pies — 24 S. Main St., Veyo · (435) 574-2132 · Open 7 days: Mon–Sat 10 a.m.–6 p.m., Sun noon–5 p.m. · Orders by phone.
Croshaw’s Gourmet Pies — 175 W. 900 S., St. George · (435) 628-1700 · Tue–Sat 11 a.m.–6 p.m., closed Sun & Mon · Orders by phone or in person. No online ordering.
Veyo Pies: the tiny shop that out-bakes its town
The Veyo story starts at the old Veyo Merc, where Evelyn Daniels began baking pies 30-plus years ago to draw customers into the store. The pies outlived the Merc — when it closed in 2008, Devaney Lomenick, who had trained under Evalyn Yaw (the shop still calls her “the single best pie maker in the whole world”), carried the ovens on. It’s a family business today, in a shop you could cross in twenty paces, turning out — by one recent count — more than 400 pies in an ordinary week. Nearly one pie per resident, every week.
Thanksgiving week is not an ordinary week. In past years the shop has taken on the order of 1,500 Thanksgiving orders across three days, with locals quoting 400 pies a day at the peak. A dozen people, a tiny kitchen, and a line out the door: the math of why you order ahead is right there.
The window. Veyo’s standing pattern — reported last season and consistent with earlier years — is a Thanksgiving order window of November 1–15: two weeks, then the book closes. Honest fine print: as of our check on November 6, the shop hadn’t posted its 2026 dates yet, so treat November 15 as the deadline to beat, not a promise — and make the call this week to confirm your pie is in the book. That’s rather the point of the piece: if the pattern holds, the window is already open and roughly half gone by the time you read this.
How to order. By phone: (435) 574-2132 (orders email: veyopies@gmail.com). There is no online order form. For large or special orders the shop asks for at least one business day’s notice as a rule — Thanksgiving is the exception that swallows the rule, so earlier is everything. One more reason to call ahead: they don’t bake every pie every day, so the flavor you want is a phone call, not a hope.
What to order. The seasonal two come first: Pumpkin ($12.99 — the menu’s own verdict: “this pie is incredible”) and southern-style Pecan ($17.99). Then the signature: the Veyo Volcano ($17.99), a graham-cracker crust layered with sweet cream cheese, butterscotch and chocolate under whipped cream — the pie people drive from Las Vegas for. Apple is the shop’s No. 1 fruit pie ($17.99), Caramel Apple runs $18.99, fruit pies generally $17.99, cream pies $16.99–$17.99. (Posted prices are the shop’s cash prices; card payments add 3%.) Gluten-free fruit pies exist, but only with advance notice — another thing the phone call handles.
The catch. When Thanksgiving is over, so is Veyo — for a while. The shop’s own hours page lists its holiday closures: Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, and one week after Thanksgiving. There is no post-holiday walk-in rescue. Your pie gets picked up before the holiday, or it doesn’t get picked up.
Croshaw’s: St. George’s 34-flavor institution
Croshaw’s began in 1991 when Ron Lloyd teamed up with Greg Croshaw — the local college football coach — and it’s still Lloyd’s recipes, developed over years of baking, that anchor the case. Ask around St. George and you’ll hear the line Greater Zion’s tourism folks quote back from locals: “It’s not Thanksgiving without Croshaw’s.”
The case holds 34-plus flavors, baked fresh daily, whole, by the slice, or in mini size, with real fruit and no preservatives in the fruit pies. The best-seller is the Sour Cream Lemon — tangy, smooth, famous well beyond the county. For the holiday table: their pumpkin is a year-round fixture (Lloyd perfected his own pumpkin spice blend), with seasonal variations including mint pumpkin and sugar-free pumpkin, plus pecan, French apple and key lime for the traditionalists. Don’t sleep on the savory side, either — three styles of individual meat pot pies share the menu with sandwiches, soups and salads.
How to order — and why it’s a race. There is no online ordering at Croshaw’s. None. You call (435) 628-1700 or you stop in. Last season, holiday orders opened October 28 (per Greater Zion’s bakery guide); the shop hadn’t posted a 2026 date as of our November 6 check. What every season shares is the cap: Croshaw’s takes only as many holiday orders as it can actually bake, and when the book is full, it’s full. Longtime locals order weeks ahead for exactly this reason. If you’re reading this in the first half of November, you are not early. You are on time — barely. Call this week.
The hours trap. Croshaw’s keeps baker’s hours: Tuesday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m., closed Sundays and Mondays, and closed most holidays. That shapes your pickup plan — Thanksgiving week pickups land on the Tuesday and Wednesday, and you should confirm your pickup day when you order, not assume it.
Prices aren’t posted online — ask when you call. (Whole pies have historically run around $20; treat that as a budgeting hint, not a quote.)
If you miss the window
It happens every year, so here’s the honest salvage playbook:
- Veyo: once the order book closes, your shot is the daily case. Go at the 10 a.m. open, not after lunch, and call that morning to ask what’s coming out of the oven — the bake rotates daily. And remember the week-after closure: a pie run the weekend after Thanksgiving is a run to a dark shop.
- Croshaw’s: the case is first-come, and regulars treat peak days accordingly — early. Minis and slices are the graceful fallback: a spread of minis reads as a tasting flight, not a defeat. But with Sunday and Monday dark, a last-minute save really means Tuesday at 11 a.m.
- Either way: the chicken pot pies (both shops make them) mean a missed dessert order can still end with something handmade from the same ovens on the table.
The honesty box: what we could not confirm for 2026
We publish this on November 6, and we checked both shops on November 2 and again on the morning of November 6 — websites and Facebook both. Neither had posted 2026 Thanksgiving specifics yet — no order form, no announcement, no date. So: Veyo’s November 1–15 window is its standing pattern, reported last season and echoed by years of regulars, but not yet confirmed by the shop for 2026. Croshaw’s October 28 opening was last season’s date; this season’s is unconfirmed, as is any exact order cap. Everything else in this piece — menus, prices at Veyo, hours, addresses, phone numbers — comes straight off the shops’ own websites, checked this week. We’ll update this piece the moment either shop posts its 2026 details. Until then, the phone call isn’t just how you order. It’s how you know.
Two family-run shops. Recipes handed down, not rolled out. In a month when most Thanksgiving pies arrive by the pallet, southern Utah’s are still made by the dozen, by hand, by people whose names are on the door — and that is exactly why they run out. Order this week, and the only race left is who gets the last slice.
