Dani Cone

Getting back to simple pleasures – like pie and coffee – helps us remember what is, and has always been, important. Seattle pie-maker Dani Cone walks us through her path to pie-making, and how community and family have shaped the way she sees the world and sought out her passions.

Dani Cone has two great loves: coffee and pie. In grade school she and her sister got a business license to start Friday Flowers, selling flowers one afternoon a week in the neighborhood and business district. At 15, she got her first official job at a deli, cutting meats and pulling espresso drinks…falling in love with the latter.

She attended Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, where she studied business economics. After a stint in Colorado, she returned to Seattle. She was a well-loved barista at Caffe Vita for six years prior to opening her first of three Fuel locations in 2005. An aficionado of the café experience, she authored the book Tall Skinny Bitter: Notes from the Center of Coffee Culture published in 2009.

On a mission to find the best accompaniment to coffee, and never one to turn down a good piece of pie, Dani turned to Grandma Molly for her all-butter crust recipe. She started a wholesale pie company in 2008 called High 5 Pie. Two years later, she opened a High 5 Pie shop and café in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. High 5 Pie has been featured on the Martha Stewart Show, New Day NW, the Food Network’s Cooking Channel, Food and Wine MagazineBon AppetitSunset Magazine, and was voted Seattle Magazine’s 2012 Reader’s Pick Best Pie Shop. Dani continues a love of good food and drink at her newest endeavors, Chico Madrid and the upcoming Cone & Steiner General.

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