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ON A TREE-LINED RESIDENTIAL STREET IN DES MOINES, A BAKERY DREAM HAS COME WRAPPED IN LOVE, UNEXPECTEDLY TRUE COMMUNITY AND ALL-BUTTER PASTRY.

- HANNAH AGRAN

Sometime in 2020, as I flopped at home doing probably nothing, a friend texted me a photo of a bakery box: "Have you heard of Pie Bird?" I hadn't-yet. Within weeks, my feed was flooded with people waiting in the afternoon sun at a tiny neighborhood farmers market in Des Moines, safely distanced and hungry for pie.

"Things blew up so quickly," Kristen Daily recalls. "It sounds weird, but COVID was the best time to start a small business. Farmers markets gave people a way to go out. People had time to stand in line for pop-ups."