Mission Pie teaches city youth about food

Though Mission Pie, in San Francisco’s gritty Mission District, looks like a regular café, dessert is the only thing on the menu. The bakery features rows of tasty handmade pies (available with a cup of organic coffee if you like). The ingredients include flour, eggs, milk and fillings like pumpkins and apples, but the active ingredients are teenagers from the local Mission High School and inspiration from the non-profit Pie Ranch, a 14-acre (six-hectare) parcel an hour south of San Francisco that has been growing wheat and berries as well as raising bees, goats and chickens with the help of students since 2005. “This restaurant was the missing piece in the neighborhood that linked what students learned in high school with Pie Ranch’s outdoor education program,” says Mission Pie manager Krystin Rubin.

The rural/urban collaboration helps educate city kids about how their food is made. “Before I learned about this, I thought pies only came from factories,” says participating student Mark Bradford, 18, a senior who has worked with Pie Ranch for more than two years.

Pie is “a great vehicle” to work with, says Karen Heisler, co-founder of Pie Ranch and Mission Pie, because “it blends all kinds of grow-able ingredients. The purpose is to give the kids a chance to show people in their own neighborhoods what they can do.”

Bradford says it’s been “a really good thing” for him to learn how to bake pies in his free time. “It’s creative,” he says. “I’ll be able to do this for the rest of my life.”

Get a piece of the pie