BATON ROUGE - Thanksgiving is notoriously a busy time for the service industry, especially the staff at Elsie's Plate and Pie.

They are feeling the heat this week and racing against the clock to fulfill a record number of orders.

Owner and head chef at Elsie's Paul Dupre told WBRZ on Tuesday that they have to bake 1,200 pies for Thanksgiving week. That's 600 pre-orders and 600 more for walk-ins, he explained. 

So how are they doing it? Dupre said the secret is to delegate tasks. What is usually a one-man job now is a team effort.

"One person might just be making crust, one person making fillings, one person doing the baking taking things in and out of the oven constantly," Dupre said.

At 11 a.m. sharp, a line of customers flooded in through the front door of the restaurant, mostly there for one thing: Elsie's famous pies.

Fan favorites include the Eye of the Tiger, which is a lemon icebox pie topped with blueberry whipped cream. Dupre said one seasonal flavor, the Harvest pie, has already sold out due to popular demand. 

It seems as though Elsie's Plate and Pie has perfected their recipes. Despite the pies being made by multiple people this week, they all appeared beautifully crafted and uniform in their glass display cases.

Dupre said the recipes come from his grandmother, Elsie, his wife, and his kids as well as himself. 

"My daughter invented the s'mores pie when she suggested we top a chocolate pie with marshmallow fluff," Dupre said. 

Dupre is confident most of the 1,200 pies will be gone by the end of the week, but if there are any leftovers he hopes to make someone's day a little sweeter if they are working on Thanksgiving. 

"If there's a coffee shop or a restaurant that's open, I'll just give them away and try to make somebody happy," Dupre said.