Abington native served Philly pretzels at the Oscars
“For them to have opened up the red carpet for the pretzel man and his wife was unbelievable.”
Philly soft pretzels made an appearance at the Academy Awards this year thanks to Abington native Adam Shapiro. The actor, who stars in Never Have I Ever and She Said, operates Shappy Pretzel Co. in Los Angeles, offering his favorite hometown snack to fellow transplants and celebrities.
When Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel asked Shapiro to put a pretzel under every seat at the Dolby Theatre, the actor got to work.
Between midnight and 8 a.m., Shapiro baked 4000 pretzels for attendees and later showed up to the theater with his wife, Katie Lowes (also known as Quinn Perkins to Scandal fans), in a red carpet look, complete with pretzel cufflinks.
The couple started cooking with their preschooler during lockdown, because they wanted to use food as a way to teach son Albee about the places they had visited pre-pandemic, including Shapiro’s hometown of Philadelphia.
Shapiro was nostalgic for the pretzels that he grew up eating on “pretzel day” at Overlook Elementary School in Abington — the same ones sold at street carts on Roosevelt Boulevard and Broad Street. He played with different ingredients and methods to create the perfect pretzel at their home, and then shared the salty snack only with his friends.
That is until Ryan Seacrest got wind of his pandemic hobby when Lowes co-hosted LIVE with Kelly and Ryan. Shapiro sent the show host a batch of pretzels, and soon after Seacrest was telling “all of America, everybody needs to buy Shappy Pretzels.”
At the time, Shapiro was still baking for friends and Philly ex-pats, offering the soft pretzels from his driveway with no intention of creating a company.
“I met many people from Philly that live in L.A. that I didn’t know — every other person who came to the pop-up was like, ‘Yo, I went to Temple,’ ” he said.
But the Seacrest endorsement encouraged Shapiro to offer his home baking to others and establish the now-booming pretzel company.
“We’re 2½ years down and we’ve sold hundreds of thousands of pretzels — we do weddings, film sets and now, the Oscars,” he said. “For them to have opened up the red carpet for the pretzel man and his wife was unbelievable.”
The “perfectly golden, perfectly salted” pretzels at Philly Pretzel Factory and the “super soft, chewy” inside of Wawa’s inspired Shapiro’s recipe. It’s a dairy-based “classic Philly shape with a twist on top” that’s “buttery, delicious, soft, and salty.”
While the pretzels are sold at the Diamond Bakery in L.A. and online for nationwide shipping, they’re also sold at Eagles bars — Britannia Pub in Santa Monica and the Garage on Motor in Culver City — during Birds games and at pop-ups.
“I didn’t realize how much I missed Philly and how I was homesick until I started doing this pretzel thing, and then all of a sudden, it brought Philly back into my life in the biggest way,” Shapiro said.