Hot Hands Pie & Biscuit on Snelling Ave. has all the goodies. The vibe is super approachable and cheerful (maybe it’s those pink walls?). Parents get treats for their kids, so kids love it, and adults get treats for themselves, so they love it, too. In the summer, there’s patio seating out front.
The shop owner (and visionary!) is Tara Coleman, who trained in France and at Stephanie Izard’s Girl & The Goat in Chicago, before building her St. Paul business. Here she’s created a welcoming space with comfort food that still has finesse. The genius of her approach is evident in the pastry case, where you’ll find chunky chocolate shortbread cookies (made with salted butter and sugar in the raw), cheddar and chive drop biscuits, and Nutter Betters, thin peanut butter oat cookies filled with Nutella frosting.
One highlight of Coleman’s business is the local produce she uses for her fruit pies. Currently, there’s a streusel-topped seasonal mixed berry pie and a lattice-topped rhubarb pie. Throughout rhubarb season, customers can bring in rhubarb from their gardens and staff will cut and measure it. For every pound of rhubarb, you’ll get a dollar to use at Hot Hands.
The Father’s Day pie includes shoestring potatoes, salted caramel, and peanut custard all in a pretzel crust! A Pride Pie made with Funfetti cake and a mascarpone topping will arrive later in June. Other summer pies to look out for include peach, strawberry, and blueberry. With some lead time (typically 48 hours), you can also special order pies. (May I suggest sour cherry?) There’s also a pay-it-forward option on the menu, so you can treat a stranger to a free slice of pie. And, if you can’t make it into the charming St. Paul shop, Hot Hands’ pies are also now available at Surdyk’s in Minneapolis.
“It feels good to eat a treat,” Gabe Stejskal says. He has worked at Hot Hands for over a year but first arrived as a customer. He lived in the neighborhood and Hot Hands was his go-to breakfast sandwich spot. “That biscuit,” he says, was “buttery, and just flaky enough.”
His favorite pie is the toasted vanilla with graham cracker crust, one of Coleman’s earliest creations. But, what kept him coming back to Hot Hands was the atmosphere. He calls it “a safe, sacred, and fun place to be.”
“Life is short,” Stejskal says. “Eat the slice of pie.”
