The neon sign inside mission pie beckons with a tempting command: “Eat Pie.” Here, the combination bakery/coffee shop in San Francisco’s Mission District is awash in sunshine and the irresistible scent of fresh-baked pie. There are tall ceilings, bright windows, hardwood floors, and a long baker’s case that shows off the goods—pie, and lots of it. Walnut, pear ginger, banana cream, Shaker lemon, sweet potato, and more. The clientele reflects the diversity of the local street life: At one table, an older Hispanic couple shares a slice of sweet potato pie. At another, a hipster with gelled hair works frantically on a Mac laptop while hovering over a warm piece of pear ginger pie. In the corner, teenagers gossip over cell phones and the last remnants of a banana cream slice.

Yet there’s more to Mission Pie than just an appeal to the almost-Pavlovian power of pie. Opened in 2007, the for-profit café is part of an innovative, not-for-profit education program for urban high school students that also includes Pie Ranch, a sprawling farm perched along the coast 50 miles south of San Francisco, where many of the ingredients used in Mission Pie’s baked goods are grown. The fertile soil at Pie Ranch is tended by high schoolers who receive class credit for growing strawberries, blackberries, apples, pears, pumpkins, and even wheat. The produce is trucked to Mission Pie, where students help turn the ingredients into those  pies. It’s a layered curriculum, but the ingredients blend together fruitfully—unified by of pie.

“Pie means community,” says Karen Heisler, the founder of both Mission Pie and Pie Ranch. Heisler’s experience has taught her that pie always tastes richer when it’s served with a scoop of metaphor. Pie signifies the good life. In the American vernacular, it’s an edible embodiment of nature’s bounty and the reassuring comforts of domestic life. Pie brings people together; no one bakes a pie without plans to share it. Pie also symbolizes shared resources; everyone wants a piece of the pie. 

Yet back in 2004, when Heisler first partnered with newlyweds Nancy Vail and Jered Lawson to create Pie Ranch, the goal was simply to create a practical laboratory for teaching kids about community-supported agriculture. Heisler had worked with Vail and Lawson at other nonprofit organizations, but eventually the trio decided to create a sustainable agriculture program of their own. They went looking for a plot of farmland, and eventually they found it: 14 scenic acres overlooking the Pacific Ocean, an hour south of San Francisco. “We saw an aerial photo of the acreage, and its shape looked like a piece of pie,” Vail explains. “That’s really where the name Pie Ranch came from. We thought, Oh, we could grow blackberries here. We could grow apples. We could grow all the ingredients for pie here! 

The cartographic joke took on a life of its own. Creating a farm dedicated to growing ingredients for pie enabled Pie Ranch to produce mixed crops, a delicious product, and a hands-on agriculture lesson for urban kids—all at once. Today Vail and Lawson live full-time on Pie Ranch, where a motley flock of chickens contributes eggs, fertilizer, and the occasional rooster stew. On a typical day, high schoolers spend a few hours helping in the fields before retreating inside to bake a few pies and turn the fruits of their labors into a tasty dessert. As the green fields at Pie Ranch vibrate with the sound of chirping blackbirds, the urban bustle of Mission Pie feels far away. But the connection between the two is always direct.

That’s by design: When Heisler decided to open Mission Pie in 2007, she didn’t want the store to become just another outpost of gentrification. Rather, she envisioned it as a place that would highlight the relationship between the people who produce food and the places where it is grown—with pie serving as the vehicle for making that link apparent.“More than any other baked good, pie relies on the integrity of the ingredients,” says Krysten Rubin, Mission Pie’s head baker. Apart from her duties as a baker, she also mentors the students employed at Mission Pie—teenagers who have just entered the working world. So as she passes along practical baking expertise, Rubin also tries to pass along some bigger lessons about taking pride in a job well done and knowing where our food comes from.

Mark Collins, 19, makes pies and works the counter at Mission Pie. Collins matriculated through the Pie Ranch/Mission Pie program, and since graduating he’s been working there as a paid employee—his first real job. “I’d probably be working in a shoe store if it wasn’t for this,” he says. “But I want to be a chef. I’ve learned things here, like it’s important to be on time, and if you’re sick you should call in. Having a job is a lot bigger, a lot more work to do, than I thought.”

“A person’s first job is a formative experience, and a lot of first jobs are in the food industry,” Rubin explains. Trouble is,  many of those jobs involve flipping burgers at fast-food chains, which is not the kind of environment that fosters either an appreciation for food or a rewarding career path.

Whether or not the students who work the land at Pie Ranch and the kitchen at Mission Pie go on to pursue culinary careers, the goal is to give them a slice of the satisfaction that comes from making something. Fortunately, that reward comes easily at Mission Pie. The blissed-out looks on the faces of the customers here clearly show that hard work pays off. Pie is a metaphor for many things, but most of all, it tastes great when you sink your teeth into it.

Top image: Mission Pie founder Karen Heisler and baker Kyrsten Rubin built their combination pie bakery and coffee shop in the heart of San Francisco's vibrant Mission District; bottom image: The strawberries growing at Pie Ranch today will end up in Mission Pie's desserts tomorrow.