WORDS Tara Crutchfield
PHOTOGRAPH Amy Sexson
Big Whoop It may be called The Whoopie Pie ‘Guys,’ but there’s a very sweet lady behind one of Polk County’s favorite farmer’s market treats. Lakeland native Tracy Nichols has been “everything from a theme park employee to a lunch lady.” She has a family history steeped in entrepreneurship. “Owning my own business was always on my bucket list. I just didn’t know what it would be,” she said.
As it grew, customers would ask if she could do 100 whoopie pies for a birthday or place an order to treat their office. The Whoopie Pie Guys operated as a cottage food business for about four and a half years. “Market opportunities kept presenting themselves, and festivals, and one-off events,” said Nichols. She thought, ‘I’ve either got to stop or grow.’
Sugar and spice and everything nice have been a hobby for the baker since elementary school. She would bake for friends and family and enter goodies at the 4-H Fair. “My grandmother was always baking – always. There was always icing around to play with,” she said. Her grandmother signed her up for a cake decorating class when she was ten, and the rest is history (though it’s a much smaller treat she’s making these days).
“We decided to grow.” She got her food license, and “the stars aligned” when she met the owner of Magnolia Popcorn, Chris Kittelberger, as they were both on the hunt for a commercial kitchen space. “We’re a great fit together. It’s like we’ve known each other all our lives which is pretty awesome,” Nichols said. “Now, there’s no stopping. We’re even outgrowing this space.” According to the Whoopie Pie Guys owner, what started as a gig for fun money has now become their retirement plan.
‘I CAN MAKE THESE!’
KEY LIME OR BUST
Tracy and her husband, Mark, travel a lot. He gets almost a month and a half of vacation time at his job, and they take advantage of every single day. “We’re big fans of regional food,” she said. “Our first stop when we land anywhere is the grocery store. We’ve got to see what people are eating, drinking, what they have on their hot bar, what they have in their bakery.”
What they’d dubbed ‘The Classic’ is one of their signature flavors. “That’s what most people know a whoopie pie as – chocolate cake, top, and bottom, with either marshmallow filling or buttercream icing.” The Whoopie Pie Guys opted for buttercream frosting because that’s what Nichols liked making, plus it held up in the Florida humidity. Joining ‘The Classic’ in the starting lineup for the WPG is Chocolate Peanut Butter and this writer’s favorite whoopie pie flavor – Key Lime. “That is a love it or hate it flavor,” she said. “That’s my Florida spin.” As for Nichols? “I’m a ‘Classic’ girl, all the way.”
A trip to Pennsylvania was all it took to give these self-described regional foodies and “chocolate milk connoisseurs” an idea that changed their future. “We were planning on eating through the state – literally,” said Nichols. When they landed in Lancaster, PA, they decided to pick up five or six flavors of this little dessert called a whoopie pie. They’d never seen them before, but man, were they good. Tracy said, “I can make these!”
“We get a lot of ‘Who made it? Pennsylvania versus New England.’ We let them fight it out – we just make them,” Nichols said.
“Mark is very encouraging and very supportive of anything I want to do, and he always has been,” said Tracy. The couple has been together for almost 20 years. After that trip six years ago, they went home, and Tracy began working on some recipes. “Our family ate a lot of whoopie pies testing the recipes.”
The Whoopie Pie Guys offer an assortment of flavors coming and going with the seasons and holidays. Last month, they had a Chocolate Strawberry flavor in honor of Valentine’s Day and plan to do Chocolate Mint for St. Patrick’s Day. Not only does Nichols get festive with her holiday flavors – she’ll even dress up. During the holiday season, Mark and Tracy paraded the Winter Haven Farmers Market as Santa and Mrs. Claus. And if you see the Easter Bunny at the market next month, between you and me, that’s Tracy!
Once she had perfected a few flavors, Nichols decided to try selling them at a market just a few miles from their home in Orlando as The Whoopie Pie Guys. “We started with a four-foot table, and now we’ve got a store and a van and a food truck and do three markets every Saturday.”
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