"Kenny Burts is a man devoted to key lime pie. Introduced to this regional specialty by his grandfather at the age of 9, he refined his own key lime pie recipe in the mid-1980s and nearly everyone who tasted his pies told Burts he should sell them. When Burts was working as a bartender, he began making pies part time in his apartment. He did everything: marketing, sales, manufacturing, and delivery to individuals and restaurants, all who raved about his product and kept coming back for seconds.
Burts remembers the work that went into his entrepreneurial beginning: I was making pies, I was delivering pies and I was tending bar. I was getting two hours sleep a night, setting three alarms and keeping the lights on so that when I woke up, I wouldn't go back to sleep. I knew at that time that nobody in their right mind was willing to do this, but that was my competitive edge. I used to make deliveries as far west as Birmingham, Alabama, 150 miles away, with 1-2 cases of pies. Nobody would have done that—nobody."