By Celestia Lyman
After the crushing crowds and big box stores of Black Friday, Small Business Saturday (Nov. 28, 2015) is all about supporting your local community and small businesses and one of The Hill Country’s favorites is the Fickle Pickle. They have three convenient locations spread over The Hill Country to suit all of your shopping needs. All three locations house both their famous original sweet and spicy pickles, the extra spicy pickles, and their marinade, as well as a treasure trove of antiques to help you find the perfect gift.
Photo: FicklePickles.com
Fickle Pickles makes a great gift, but is also perfect to serve with your holiday meal. Serve it along with a cheese and appetizer tray, or use it to enhance the main course. The label suggests marinating meat in the juice or adding it to your salad. Their website also has a recipe for Fickle Pickle’s deviled eggs. Some customers get really creative and use it for various cocktails such as a bloody Mary, or a shot of whiskey with a Fickle Pickleback, or there is even a local restaurant that makes margaritas with the juice. The shaved ice vendor down the street also offers shaved ice with Fickle Pickle juice as a topping.
Fickle Pickles was started 31 years ago by Billie Shaw, who was known as The Pickle Lady of Boerne. She had been canning and pickling her entire adult life and giving her goods away to friends and they kept telling her she needed to sell her pickles because they were the best. She was a self-made woman, at one time owning a bar in San Antonio, and later opening an antique store in Boerne. The antique business started to slow down when the internet began to pick up speed, so she began to bring in cases of her locally famous pickles to sell and couldn’t keep them on the shelves. Fickle Pickle has since been featured on The Martha Stewart Show as well as in Southern Living Magazine and Food & Wine Magazine.
Photo: ficklepickles.com
A few years ago, her daughter Lisa and son-in-law Jake Obriotti took over the small business, because Billie was ready to retire after a long and fulfilling career. Lisa and Jake thought they would continue on with their regular jobs and work Fickle Pickle on the side, but they quickly found out it was a full-time job. Fickle Pickle is still all hand-canned and homemade, so you truly are supporting your community. Boxes are currently piled to the ceiling at the front of the store, ready to ship to make it before Thanksgiving. They ship all over the continental US and have even shipped to an airbase in Germany and England and once shipped to Hawaii, where the shipping was only two dollars less than the cost of the pickles.
When you walk into Fickle Pickles, you are greeted with a smile, a hello, and a tray of their famous original pickles to sample. They have friendly staff to help you with any questions, pickle or antique, that you may have. Their flagship store is located at 118 S. Main Street, Boerne, TX. Their Gruene location has been open for nine years and is located at 1720 Hunter Road Suite B, Gruene, TX. Their newest store is located in Bandera. It has been open for a year and a half and is located at 305 Main Street, Bandera, TX. You can also place your order and get recipes online at their website ficklepickles.com. Stop by this Small Business Saturday, or any time and taste “The Best You’ve Ever Had.”
