Documentary features Purple Pie Place

The Purple Pie Place is no longer just a wildly popular restaurant in Custer.
It’s also a movie star.
Since March, a film crew from Braker Lane Films of El Rancho, N.M., has been in and out of Custer shooting a documentary at the revered Custer landmark. The documentary follows owner Bobby and Yulia Yehle and staff as they navigate the season-opening of the restaurant through the hustle and bustle of the tourism season through the end of the season in the fall.
The documentary is the idea of Daniel Zubiate, owner of Braker Lane Films, who first came to the Black Hills 25 years ago and is an avid fan of the Purple Pie Place. He returned a couple of times in the years that followed, but last summer was back in Custer with a friend and in a long, long line to get into the Purple Pie Place. They eventually gave up on getting into the restaurant, but the seed was planted for Zubiate.
“I thought, this place might make a good documentary,” Zubiate said. “I reached out to Yulia and pitched it and she said ‘Yes, it sounds like fun. Let’s do it.’”
Yulia said her only pause in granting the request was that since she is an immigrant to the country from Ukraine, her accent could be an issue.
“I have an accent and stuff and I’m going to say something wrong,” she said with a laugh. “I was like, ‘if that’s not a problem you can film it. I don’t care.’”
Zubiate didn’t care, and in fact, said Yulia’s back story is part of what makes her so endearing and likeable. It’s a quality that comes through loud and clear in the film.
“She is a very likeable person. I think people watching this will be rooting for her,” Zubiate said. “She’s like a little star in her own right.”
The Braker Lane crew, consisting of Zubiate, Kathryn McCune and Everette Ortiz, first came to Custer to begin filming in March, even before the Purple Pie Place was open.
“We were like, ‘we’re not even open yet,’” Bobby said.
That was the idea, however, as the crew wanted to film the process of getting the restaurant open for the tourism season.
Zubiate said the crew comes to each filming with bullet points it wants to hit, and meets with the Yehles prior to filming to discuss what will be done next. The crew also catches up with employees, and then the work of filming everyone’s interactions with the customers and each other begins, as well as some sit down interviews. Everything is unscripted, although once in a while someone will say something or tell a story the crew wants on film and will request it be repeated. For the Yehles, that is the hardest part.
“They are like ‘make it natural. Now it’s not natural,’” Bobby said with a laugh. ‘”Maybe in a little bit. Catch me off guard.”
“It’s easier to be filmed when you don’t know (you’re being filmed),” Yulia said. “You have to forget the camera is there.”
It can be tight quarters when the crew is working, the staff is working and the restaurant is full of customers. Zubiate recalls times there are eight people working in the kitchen and the crew is scrunched up against the wall trying to get shots.
McCune often avoids going into those situations and add to the space crunch, instead she “runs interference,” answering the questions from curious customers as to what is going on with the camera crew and getting release forms signed by those who appear on camera.
As it turns out, not only do people not mind being a part of the production, they sort of seek it out. In fact, some “won’t stop talking,” Zubiate said with a laugh.
The crew will have been in Custer seven times by the time filming stops, as it will continue to return to film until the end of tourism season. After each filming session the crew returns to New Mexico and Zubiate begins the process of editing the new footage, as each shoot yields four to five hours of footage. Over 40 minutes of the documentary has already been edited, and by the time the documentary debuts Zubiate will have sifted through 35 hours of footage to make the (roughly) 80-minute documentary.
“It’s daunting,” Zubiate said of the editing process. “I download all the footage and looking at the file there is dozens and dozens of video file. Some of the clips are five and six minutes long and he has to scrub though all of it, frequently for only a few seconds to clip. As they shoot he charts everything that is going on in a notebook so that it’s easier to find the action he seeks when it comes to editing.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the three crew members have become fast friends with the Yehles, and the group usually hangs out after the work day ends to talk, eat and share laughs.
In fact, Zubiate says seeing the Yehles has been his favorite part of the experience.
“They are just really good people,” he said. “They are a good team. If I was a young man I would want to work there. People are going to fall in love with Yulia. We did. She just has that comedic timing and knows how to put those buttons on the scene at the end. She’s so unique.”
“She is truly a nice, sweet person. Bobby is amazing too,” McCune said.
The feeling is mutual, as the Yehles said they have grown fond of the crew, and Yulia said her favorite part of the experience has been meeting the three.
“They are very nice. I really like them. I’ve never met anybody who works in that field. It’s cool to see what it looks like,” she said. “I like having them around. I feel lucky they picked us.”
Ortiz has even brought his violin to entertain the crowd at the Purple Pie Place for a couple of hours. He also learned the Ukranian national anthem to play for Yulia.
McCune had never been to South Dakota before the shooting of Purple Pie Place, and like many who come to the Black Hills for the first time, she quickly fell in love.
“It’s absolutely beautiful. I love it,” McCune said of Custer and the Black Hills. “I don’t know I would have ever come up here. Now I want to bring my kids up here so they can check it out.”
McCune also marvels at the friendliness of the people of Custer.
“I have never been to a place where everyone is so kind,” she said. “The people here are so nice.”
The crew has had a great time turning what could be drudgery in the form of the long drive from Custer to New Mexico and back (they can’t fly because of all the filming equipment) by stopping along the way and taking in sights they have not seen. Even going out into Custer State Park, etc., to get simple “B Roll” shots has been a positive experience for the crew.
“It’s like nowhere else. We have mountains and pine trees in New Mexico but it’s not like here,” Zubiate said. “I feel like the Black Hills have a healing quality. I don’t know how to explain it. I just feel  good when I’m here. I envy people who live here and get to stay here. It’s always been my dream to move here eventually.”
McCune said one time when the crew was with the Yehles riding on a side by side she had an “aha” moment while sitting with Ortiz.
“I was like ‘are you serious?’ We get to do this. This is what I do,” she said. “Pinch me. This is amazing. To have a passion for something and not only get to do it, but to do it in a place as beautiful as this—there is no way to describe that.”
Zubiate and McCune say it’s no mystery as to why the Purple Pie Place is so popular. Combine the Yehles with what they say is a great staff of people who want to be there (“Yulia and Bobby are good to their people,” Zubiate said) and a family atmosphere is created. Oh, and then there’s the food.
“The chicken pot pie,” Zubiate said, trailing off as he remembers the taste. “We have that every visit at least once. It is so good. I can’t even describe it.”
Kathryn raves about the various pies she has had since filming began.
“It is so good. It’s amazing,” she said.
The documentary should be out within a year, and Zubiate said he has tossed around the idea of presenting it to a film festival such as the Black Hills Film Festival. A trailer for the documentary has already been released and can be found at https://youtu.be/rHJywTu9cKQ.
“I wanted to cry,” Yulia said of seeing the trailer. “It’s so cute.”
The film crew has enjoyed Custer so much they are considering returning for future projects, although nothing has been formally planned. In the interim they will return to Custer a few more times and finish up their current project, a project they couldn’t be happier about the way it has turned out.
“I have learned so much,” Zubiate said. “I don’t want to leave. Thank you Custer, for being so patient with us.”
The Yehles said they may host a screening party at the Purple Pie Place for the documentary (depending on when it is released), and Yulia encourages anyone who gets approached to film a documentary about them or their business to just say yes.
And, who knows? Maybe the Purple Pie Place will fall to second in terms of the most famous building or person located in that part of Custer when all is said and done.
“Watch me, I’ll become famous,” Yulia says with a laugh when asked if this is her first step to becoming a movie star. “You’ll come ask me for an autograph.”