The Dive Bar Outside Of Seattle Where You Can Find Award-Winning Pie

Just outside of Seattle is the small, charming old downtown of Snohomish, Washington, laid out along the banks of the river that gives the town its name. This small, rural community is the last place you'd expect to find dessert made by a Food Network award-winning baker, but you can at Pie Dive Bar.

Don't just make the trek out to Snohomish for dessert; come extra hungry because Pie Dive Bar offers savory dinner pies in addition to sweet dessert options. Popular meat pies like the chicken or steak pot pie, or the shepherd's pie, which are high up on Daily Meal's list of meat pies from around the world, share the menu with more offbeat options like a brisket mac n' cheese and a Cajun gumbo pie. Of course, the dessert pie menu is extensive, but it's hard to turn down the humble crumble, which won a Food Network award and was featured on the Food Network show "Bake You Rich," where Alyssa made it.

True to its name, this late-night pie hotspot, located in an almost 100-year-old building, is also a great dive bar. The drink menu features shot-and-a-beer combos, with options like bourbon or tequila alongside tallboys of Hamm's, Rainier, or PBR. Essentially, it offers cheap beer that still hits the spot.

The two owners, Hart and Alyssa Kingsbery, brought their skills together after meeting during the pandemic. Hart was a well-known country musician and bartender in Seattle, and Alyssa was a pie master and a clinical mental health counselor.

Co-owner Hart Kingsbery built the cocktail menu around his experiences in the desert of Tucson, where he worked in barbecue and now owns a pie shop. His drink, the Black Rose, with rosemary vodka and blackberry liquor, is designed "to make something that kind of tasted like a pie," Kingsbery told Daily Meal. It sounds like it belongs on our list of dessert cocktails every home bartender should know! As for the pies, Kingsbery tells us that "the most ordered savory pie is the barbecue brisket and mac." He goes on to explain that it's "beer mac n cheese with burnt end barbecue brisket in a pie." For dessert, make sure you save room for the decadent Humble Crumble full of apples, marionberries, strawberries, raspberries, and streusel that Alyssa knocked out of the park on "Bake You Rich."

On top of being an award-winning pie-maker, Alyssa Kingsbery is a clinical mental health counselor and uses this background to run a neurodivergent hiring program. "After fifteen years of being a restaurateur, I realized that a lot of the humans [who] gravitate toward the restaurant industry fall under the neurodivergent umbrella," says Kingsbery. "I restructured my company with Snohomish being the test flight for implementing a neurodivergent employees manual and handbook."

The handbook outlines the duo's methods for creating an inclusive workplace, including individual and group therapy sessions designed to help employees work effectively as a team in a restaurant setting. The company also has a division dedicated to clinical mental health and couples counseling, as well as corporate workshops. "And yes, the vehicle for therapy is pie," says Kingsbery.