FRESNO, Calif. ( KSEE/KGPE ) – The Marie Callender’s on Fresno’s Cedar Avenue and Shaw Avenue is the first location in the history of the company to host a Fourth of July pie-eating contest, filling bellies and handing out cash to celebrate America’s Independence Day.
Rich Shields, the general manager at Fresno’s Marie Callender’s, says he was visiting New York when he came up with the idea to host a pie-eating contest.
“A couple of years ago, Fourth of July, I was out in New York in Brooklyn over by Coney Island watching the Nathan’s Hotdog Eating Contest,” Shields said. “It just made sense to kind of showcase out beautiful pies and kinda do the same thing.”
After calls with Marie Callendar’s corporate, Shields discovered that he was the first general manager to come up with the idea. He quickly got the green light to host the event.
Shields and his staff set up chairs, canopies, tables, water, panchos, and most importantly pies. According to Shields, the rules were simple:
- Competitors could not use their hands to eat the pie, only to drink water
- Competitors were each given four pies to eat and a five-minute time limit
- Competitors could get more pie if they finish the four pies in front of them