Whitey's Pies owner Geoff White loves a chat and has no plans on stopping

If he's not busy in the back of the Smoko Shed cooking up his famous Whitey's Pies, you can find him perched on the tables outside, having a yarn to any customer willing to chat.

It's that people-first mentality that saw him transform the Elsham Avenue business from a "run-down takeaway shop" into a go-to destination for the myriad of nearby tradies.

"The most important thing in our business is friendliness, but you've also got to be quick," Mr White said.

"I always tell people I don't do fast-food good, I do good food fast."

As a young boy he completed a pastry cooking apprenticeship, but decided to follow his family into the trucking industry.

A self-proclaimed "foodie", Mr White would have loved to open his own truck stop, mainly so he could "tell some tales" to passers-by.

With the mindset that there would always be an opportunity to "make a good pie" in Orange, he kept his eyes open for the right shop to call his own.

Having already run the Fair Dinkum Restaurant and Mountain Tea Café, it was a day in the early 2000s that would alter the course of his life from that point forward.

"I came past here one day and went 'why isn't that working'," he said of the building now known as the Smoko Shed.

"I stuck my neck out and did it."

January 15, 2002 marked his first day of trade and nearly 22 years later, the business is stronger than ever.

At the beginning, he would bake eight trays of pies a day.

Since then, he's brought his daughters Billie White and Rach Gander on board and with a little added help, that number is up to 500.

"In a small town the most important thing is return customers," he said.

"I knew once I'd got my leg in the door and I'd got it going that it was going to be a machine."

From cracking 1500 eggs a week, to serving 500 customers a day, there's hardly time to stop and have a chinwag.

But Mr White always finds a way, even for the Central Western Daily.

"One of the girls said to me 'what are you doing with the newspaper coming, don't you think we're busy enough'," he added.

"I said 'you've got to give 'em what the fans want'."

So how long will he keep delighting the pie-lovers of Orange?

Considering that all a brief retirement in 2015 did was reignite his passion for the job, fair to say there's a few years of stories still to come.

"The last thing I want to do is stop," he said.

"Although I wouldn't mind slowing down a bit."

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