Key Lime Pies: A Bizarre 4Chan Mystery...

Most of us likely have no idea how close we’ve come to death in our lives, or how many times we’ve narrowly escaped it. For others, like Kyle Marsh, they knew exactly how close they had been, and it was far too close for comfort.

Kyle was repairing an antenna for WLOS-TV outside Asheville, North Carolina. The station’s transmitters were out in the woods, which seems like a terrible place to keep them. Kyle approached the remote work station and climbed to the top of the first tower to quickly replace a broken part that had been taken out by an errant crow on a kamikaze mission.

Had he seen the bird himself, perhaps Kyle would have taken heed of the bad omen and declined the job, or at least requested assistance. But there was seemingly no reason to be concerned, and this was just a routine maintenance job, the kind he had done on various antennas around Ohio dozens if not hundreds of times by that point.

The repairs went off without a hitch, just like Kyle was about to. As soon as he began his descent, his foot slipped on the metal ladder rung, twisting and spraining his ankle. Shocked by the sudden pain, Kyle lost his grip entirely and was sent flying from the top of the 100 meter antenna towards the ground.

Some may call it luck that his body came off the antenna with enough horizontal speed to send him crashing down through the tree line, but to Kyle it was more of a cruel joke. As he bounced off tree limbs he could feel his ribs crack and his shoulder dislocate. That’s not even to mention all the minor cuts and bruises.

But the trees weren’t just breaking his bones, they were breaking his fall. For all the injuries Kyle was sustaining, he knew that had he been given the time to freely accelerate before landing on the ground, this all could have been much worse. That was likely the last coherent thought Kyle would have for a while, as his head would then slam against a thick branch, only a few meters off the ground.

Now concussed and alone in the woods, Kyle couldn’t find his way back to the transmitter. It was summertime, so the tree cover would have been enough to block out his view of the tall structure, and it was too dark to simply look at which direction he had come. Even had Kyle been in his right mind, orientating himself back the way he came could have been a difficult task, but after the concussion he was no longer in his right mind. He grabbed a branch that had fallen to the ground with him to use as a cane, and made his way to his feet.

Or rather, his foot, as no weight could be put on the sprained ankle. Delirious, dazed, and desperate, he embarked deeper into the dense foliage.

Hobbling through the woods, the minutes slowly turned into hours. Kyle’s disappearance had not gone unnoticed and he had received several phone calls, but he couldn’t hear the ringing of his phone over the deafening cacophony of the ringing inside his skull. Finally, overtaken with pain and exhaustion he collapsed. From his new vantage point on the ground, he could see that the dirt and grass was soon going to turn to pavement, so he mustered the strength to crawl forward, desperate to finally receive some help and medical attention.

He crawled his way onto the side of highway 25, the lights of Asheville’s city streets overwhelming his senses. As he tried to get his bearings, he heard a voice.

“Oh you poor dear!”

Looking up, Kyle saw the angelic beauty of none other than Anita Pelaez. She helped him to his feet, flung his arm around her shoulder and guided him across the street towards the restaurant she owned. They had been closing for the night, but Anita was not one to abandon a stranger in need. Kyle stumbled a bit, grabbing her tighter to keep from collapsing once more to the ground. “Now don’t you get fresh, The Captain is still inside!” she joked to him.

When they got inside, Anita helped Kyle sit down at a booth to catch his breath. He had requested an ambulance, but Anita knew what he really needed. She went to the kitchen and grabbed the last slice of Captain Kutchie Pelaez’s famous key lime pie. One bite and Kyle knew everything was going to be better. As he indulged himself in the rich, delicious key lime pie, he could feel his wounds healing. Halfway through the pie he stood up and began pacing the restaurant, just because he could. His sprained ankle had never felt better in his life. But by the time Kyle reached that last bite he had to sit down again, otherwise the intense piegasm that had begun to overtake his loins would have knocked him completely off his feet.

Kutcharitaville

Oswald Carlos Pelaez was a native of Tampa, Florida. Born in 1926, he and his family moved to Asheville, North Carolina in the late 1930’s, where he would remain until his passing in January of 2020. His family had a knack for business, and they owned and operated a grocery store, soda bottling plant, and several rental properties. This story isn’t about him. This story is about his son, Oswald Jr., nicknamed “Kutchie” for reasons that we may decipher later.

Oswald Jr. and his wife Anita owned a restaurant at 2188 Hendersonville Rd in Arden, North Carolina, just a few miles outside of Asheville. The restaurant went through several incarnations, dating back all the way to 1976. It began as Kutchie’s Steak and Lobsterhouse. It was likely a classy joint, as I found several classified ads seeking an organist for their restaurant. The organist must have been a hit, because in 1981, they rebranded to Kutchie’s Dine and Dance Supper Club. And if you’re thinking that they probably just had a DJ or a jukebox, their 1983 ads boast having Jack Fischer on the organ. The spirit of the 1930s was alive and well in 1980’s North Carolina. By the time the 1990s rolled around, it was time to rebrand the restaurant again. In 1991, it became Kutchie’s Key West Bar and Grill.

There are reports from locals that in the early 2000’s the name changed once again to Kutchie’s Key West Kutcharitaville, and that this was their ultimate demise. Jimmy Buffett’s lawyers found out and threatened legal action in 2006, at which point Kutchie decided to just close shop and move back to Florida rather than face the court battle. A third option did exist, and he could have simply renamed the restaurant yet again, but he was pushing 60 years old at this point and decided it wasn’t worth the effort. That is, assuming this actually happened. I haven’t been able to independently verify these claims, but Buffett’s lawyers sued a Colorado dispensary called Marijuanaville in 2014 and a Florida restaurant, Martiniville, in 2012, so it is well within the realm of possibility that these reports from Asheville natives are correct.

The opinions of alleged residents to the area vary wildly on Kutchie’s Key West. Most people claim that the food was really good, as was the key lime pie. Some cite it as being merely mediocre. One alleged resident said that he drove past the restaurant every day for years and that he never saw more than a single car in the parking lot.

He claimed that his friend ate there once and it was terrible, and that he believed it was a front for laundering money. I am highly skeptical of that person’s claim, but I figured I’d toss it in there for our more conspiracy minded viewers, even if I don’t believe a word of it.

The Reviews

So Oswald Jr. owned a restaurant for decades that eventually went out of business, that doesn’t seem like much of a mystery. The mystery is what happened next.

The first review appeared on the So Good Blog in October, 2009, three years after Kutchie’s Key West closed. There was a two sentence blog post lamenting that the poster wanted to find his soulmate, a woman with whom he could have dirty sex followed by eating cheeseburgers together. That’s an extremely low bar for a soulmate, and I wouldn’t think it’s that hard to find. Over two years after the original blog post was made, a reply came from user Jimmy Buffet saying “These cheeseburgers are better than sex!

Where I tell you, Kutchie’s Key West Bar and Grill, Asheville NC.”

It reads like an ordinary post from a spambot, but this was only the first post of thousands. The posts would continue to get stranger, sometimes to the point of being downright pornographic, and it would continue for years. The reviews start off pretty benign. They are short, related to the original post, and advertise Kutchie’s Key West and the key lime pies.

They are also always posted under the name of a celebrity or famous fictitious character such as Jimmy Buffet, Christie Brinkley, Johnny Carson, Roger Ramjet, or Vinnie Gambini.

As the years passed, the reviews got longer and weirder. They loved to talk about the beautiful Anita Pelaez, wife of Captain Kutchie Palaez, and the magic of their key lime pies. The grammar and spelling were off, the formatting was all over the place, and each message was unique. The reviews no longer had anything to do with the articles they were posted on, and instead of being located primarily on food blogs they were now being posted anywhere and everywhere, but especially on articles of a somewhat sexual nature.

This continued until 2013.

Starting in July of 2013 the posts became copypasted messages, occasionally with minor modifications or original text at the end. A second copypasted message was added to the mix that November, and slowly more would be created until 2016 when there were eight total different messages. These reviews were paragraphs long and told insane stories like the intro I wrote for you today, except about 90% less coherent. No longer simply tales of how delicious the key lime pie or the “goody goody cheeseburger” were, now these reviews of the restaurant spoke of intense piegasms, curing erectile dysfunction, increasing penis size by 50%, and making men multiorgasmic.

The highest concentration of reviews up until this point had been when they first began. As many as ten reviews per day would appear for the first month or two before slowing down. There would even be pauses with no new reviews at all. When 2013 introduced the copypasted reviews, however, the output had increased to anywhere from double to four times what it had originally been, and this rate was sustained for nearly a full year.

In addition to all the key lime pie reviews, there were a handful of very strange reviews in 2012, back when the messages were all hand crafted with love and care. These reviews were all about a website called ozsgold.com, a site supposedly owned by Oswald Pelaez and his brother Pete. While Oswald does in fact have a brother named Pete, there does not seem to be any way to know whether they actually owned this site or not. What is known, thanks to the internet archive, is that in 2011 this website was hosting a multilevel marketing scam run by the company Numis Networks. Numismatics is the term for collecting coins, currency, and rare metals, which fits both the company name and the website name, as well as the claims that Oswald was guaranteeing profit on purchases of gold.

Claims that Jimmy Buffet was responsible for the restaurant shutting down may have been confirmed in 2015 when the matter was brought up in the newest of the copypasted messaged. This was also five years before locals would make that claim, as no one had even found these reviews yet. In September of 2015, the new post mentioned “Don’t be fooled into thinking that Jimmy Buffet designed or had anything to do with this place.”

The original restaurant, Kutchie’s Steak and Lobsterhouse, predated not only the first Margaritaville restaurant but the song itself. The interior design of the building changed quite a bit over its rebrandings, up to the point of allegedly having a live alligator in a tank in the middle of the restaurant, but I can understand the frustration in being sued for copying a restaurant that didn’t exist until you had already been in business for almost a decade. Still, the alleged testimonials that would come later did say its final incarnation had a very Margaritaville vibe to it, and if true you’d had to have thought they could see a lawsuit coming.

While the previous online reviews had all been about the quality of the key lime pie, the beauty of Anita Pelaez, and how much the restaurant was going to improve your sex life, this new 2015 message also took a sudden, sharp political turn. It spoke highly of Donald Trump while demonizing Hillary Clinton, which I found a bit unusual at first. Kutchie’s grandfather had run for local political office as a member of the Democratic Party. After more research, it seems they did not see eye to eye on politics at all, but we’ll get to that a little bit later.

An Internet Phenomenon

In September, 2016, the first Reddit post was made about the reviews. People were instantly captivated by the sheer volume of outlandish and enigmatic reviews about key lime pie and wanted to know more about the identity of the poster. Whoever was making the posts seemed to be aware of this development. That November, the eighth and final copypaste message was posted.

It began “Hey, Bob”, followed by a joke about Ashton Kutcher. There were variations on the post as usual, but the first one ended with “Caution, I think we’re being watched.” Others made similar comments about feeling like someone was watching them.

After 2016, it seems that any “official” correspondence from this poster ceased entirely. There are a lot of copycats out there, but the writing style simply doesn’t match. Someone also found a Facebook account for a Kutchie Pelaez that made a similar style comment on a viral Facebook post, but that account was created the same month as the Reddit post.

Considering that Oswald Sr.’s Facebook page had been located and was created in 2010, it is unlikely that his son would have only joined after this whole situation went viral. Still, people contacted the user and received strange replies in Swedish and German, the native languages of the people contacting him. The replies turned out to just be quotes from video game cutscenes, but there is a subsection of people that still believe these messages are from the original poster.

This whole situation really begs the question, why would someone post thousands of reviews for a restaurant that shut down years before only to stop almost immediately once people started reading them?

Theories

Spambot Gone Wrong

The first theory is that this is some sort of spambot gone wrong. This was the first and most obvious theory because of the massive volume of posts, but it also makes absolutely no sense. The posts didn’t start until three years after the restaurant closed, many of the sites posted on require verified accounts including captcha and other anti-spam protocols, and the messages are all so thematically consistent (though those themes evolved over time).

The formatting and scatterbrained nature of the posts certainly could read like something a spambot would write, but in the beginning the posts, while frequent, weren’t particularly spammy in nature. They came on strong, but they slowed down and there were even breaks of multiple months in between new posts. I just don’t feel like this fits at all.

Reverse SEO

Reverse Search Engine Optimization is the process by which you try to bury negative or unflattering search results about yourself or your company deep down in Google’s results, as most people aren’t going to go past the first or second page of a search. There are two possible ways this was being used here. The first is that the Pelaez family was trying to bury search results about themselves or the restaurant, but seeing as this started years after the restaurant was already closed it seems more than a little pointless, and extensive digging doesn’t pull up anything particularly negative on Kutchie or Anita themselves. It’s possible that means the tactic worked, but a lot of people have done a lot of digging without finding anything.

The other option was that these reviews were being used as a means to test Reverse SEO techniques. The posts contain pretty unique search terms, like “Kutcharitaville” and the owners’ names. By making a series of these posts and then searching for the terms they used, they could see what sites were showing up in the top of the results page. For this to be the case, however, I’d think it would be far more effective to just use a single copypasted message rather than taking the time to write new, individual messages for years.

Troll or an ARG

The idea that this is just a troll would make a lot of sense, except for the fact that as soon as it started gaining any attention the posts almost immediately stopped. That doesn’t rule this theory out, however, as posting nothing has made people much more interested in this mystery than if it had kept going. An alternate reality game would absolutely have been a solid possibility at first, but there was nothing deeper to delve into than just the initial posts, and it went on for far too long without anyone taking notice. Then again, maybe there was something deeper to delve into…

Coded Messages

It wouldn’t be an internet mystery without secret codes and ciphers! The odd language used in many of the posts, as well as the inconsistent capitalization of random words throughout, have led many people to believe that these messages are actually a secret code. Kutchie is also Jamaican slang for a weed pipe.

It could be that Captain Kutchie was just a prolific enthusiast of the devil’s grass while cooking at his restaurant, but perhaps it is something more dangerous. These messages could use Captain Kutchie’s name as a dog whistle, and the key lime pie he pedals represents narcotics, which the decoded message would tell someone how to purchase.

Or maybe it’s something much more sinister. There are repeated references in these posts to Kutchie’s Key West being located near the Biltmore Estate, a four acre, 250 room estate built by George Vanderbilt, or more specifically built by his 1,000 workers over six full years. It is true that Kutchie’s was located near the Biltmore, and the estate is one of the major tourist attractions in North Carolina so this would be useful to include in a sales pitch. But the Biltmore also has a number of conspiracies surrounding it. The estate is filled with secret doors and tunnels, and the 70,000 gallon indoor pool is speculated to have been used as a site for child sacrifices. This, combined with the intensely sexual nature of many of the key lime pie reviews, has led people to believe that these messages are code for sex trafficking, illegal pornography, or worse. If you look hard enough, it seems you can find build a conspiracy about literally anything. Still, this remains one of the most popular theories, so if you think you’ve cracked any of the ciphered codes, be sure to get in the comments and share the truth with us.

A Single Poster

There are thousands of reviews for Kutchie’s key lime pie, so many that it seems impossible they could be made by a single person, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. We’re used to our internet mysteries happening quickly. Thousands of posts appear in a day, seemingly out of nowhere, and the game is afoot.

It’s easy to forget that this was going on for almost eight full years before anyone noticed, and that while there were thousands of these posts, there are also thousands of days in eight years. Nearly 3,000, in fact. It pretty much averages out to one post a day.

We know at times the rate was much higher than this, but there were also large breaks too. When everything appears all at once, it can seem unfathomable that a single person did this. After realizing how long they had, it becomes a lot more believable.

Yes, it would have taken an extreme amount of dedication, but we already know whoever was doing this had that.

So who is the single poster? My money is on none other than the famous Captain Kutchie himself. In early 2016, Oswald Pelaez was interviewed about a property he owned that was run down and abandoned. He explained that he had been in talks to rent the property to a hotel to build there (it is a prime piece of real estate), but talks fell through when the Great Recession hit in 2008.

In this interview, he mentioned having “another year to drag along with the president”, meaning that he was not a fan of Obama and likely was very pro-Trump, just like our mysterious poster.

There’s a lot more, however. Aside from posting about the location of an out of business restaurant, the poster had a lot of other details correct as well. They correctly identified it as having been in business since 1976, something that is not easy to ascertain and most, if not all, of the early coverage of the story pointed to this as being factual incorrect.

It’s possible that the restaurant advertised this fact, but as the only image available is of the abandoned property in 2008, there’s no way to know. The reviews also have a bit of an unhealthy obsession with Anita Pelaez, though if it were her husband posting then it suddenly becomes sweet instead of creepy. Either way, whoever is writing definitely sounds like they are in love with Anita.

A lot of it reads like dad jokes, and has references to older pop culture like Roger Ramjet, so the person is probably at least in their 60s, the age that Kutchie would have been when this whole saga began. He makes a lot of sense as the culprit, with the exception of one simple question: why? Aspiring programmers might make spambots to prove that they can. Trolls will troll for the sake of lulz, that’s motive enough.

A cult trying to spread information about child sacrifices would try to disguise their message then disappear upon unwanted scrutiny. But why would the former owner of a restaurant promote the out of business venture with such dedication for years after it closed?

Wrap Up

While Kyle Marsh never existed, Anita and Oswald “Kutchie” Pelaez did, proprietors of Kutchie’s Key West Bar and Grill. I am fairly confident that Kutchie is the one behind the key lime pie reviews, but there’s not much along the lines of proof, and even less possible motivation. There are a lot of rumours, speculation, and alleged correspondence from his family and friends.

Someone who claimed to have dated one of his waitresses said that Kutchie was crazy, even back then. Multiple professionals in the mental health field have said that the posts read like they were written by someone on the autism spectrum, and that autism could also explain the intense fixation on key lime pie.

If any of the alleged correspondence is to be believed, there is another theory as well. Oswald Sr. allegedly had been suffering from dementia before his death, and didn’t remember that the restaurant his family had owned was no longer in business. Most dementia is not hereditary, but a person is more likely to develop Alzheimer’s if an immediate family member also suffered from the disease.

Were Kutchie in the early stages when these posts began, and he was certainly at the right age for it, these posts all could have taken place at times when he forgot that the restaurant was shut down. It isn’t the cleanest explanation and it has some holes, like how lucid he appeared to be when interviewed in 2016.

Sadly, none of the potential answers to this mystery are without their holes. Some have more holes than others, but unless the progenitor of the reviews steps forward to take credit, there’s a good chance we will never know who did it. And even if the internet’s combined sleuthing is able to finally definitively prove who it was, we’re unlikely to ever know why.

Frequently Asked Questions

What happened to Kyle Marsh?

Kyle Marsh fell from a 100-meter antenna while repairing it, sustaining multiple injuries. He was later found and helped by Anita Pelaez, who gave him a slice of key lime pie.

Who were Anita and Oswald ‘Kutchie’ Pelaez?

Anita and Oswald ‘Kutchie’ Pelaez were the owners of Kutchie’s Key West Bar and Grill, a restaurant in Arden, North Carolina.

What was the original name of Kutchie’s Key West Bar and Grill?

The original name of Kutchie’s Key West Bar and Grill was Kutchie’s Steak and Lobsterhouse.

What was the mystery surrounding Kutchie’s Key West Bar and Grill?

The mystery involved thousands of online reviews for the restaurant, which had closed years before the reviews started appearing. The reviews were often bizarre and sexually explicit, and were posted under the names of celebrities and fictional characters.

What were some of the theories about the mysterious reviews?

Theories included a spambot gone wrong, reverse SEO tactics, a troll or an ARG (alternate reality game), coded messages, and the possibility of a single poster, potentially Oswald ‘Kutchie’ Pelaez himself.

What was the significance of the key lime pie in the reviews?

The key lime pie was often mentioned in the reviews, with claims that it had magical properties, such as curing erectile dysfunction and increasing penis size.

What was the connection between the reviews and politics?

Starting in 2015, one of the copypasted messages took a political turn, speaking highly of Donald Trump and demonizing Hillary Clinton.

What was the Biltmore Estate’s connection to the mystery?

The reviews often mentioned the Biltmore Estate, leading some to speculate about conspiracies involving the estate, such as child sacrifices and sex trafficking.

What was the timeline of the mysterious reviews?

The reviews started in October 2009 and continued until 2016, with the frequency and content of the reviews evolving over time.

What was the impact of the Reddit post on the mystery?

The first Reddit post about the reviews was made in September 2016. After this, the official correspondence from the poster ceased, and the reviews stopped.

Sources

• Original Decoding the Unknown video: Key Lime Pies: A Bizarre 4Chan Mystery…
• Hero image source by Brandon Zhang / openverse, cc0.