The Low Down on New York’s Best Key Lime Pie

How Caitlin Hubner made the nostalgic dessert even better than usual.

The Deligram shines a spotlight on the many incredible food artisans of New York and elsewhere. In our last feature, we spoke with Mexican chef Fany Gerson, founder of La Newyorkina and Fan Fan Doughnuts. This week, we’re highlighting another Brooklyn-based dessert maker: Caitlin Hubner, founder of Cait’s Key Lime Pie.

The Product: A perfectly tart key lime pie.
How To Buy: Order online at caitskeylime.com, and follow on Instagram for more details on IRL pop-ups.
How To Get One For Thanksgiving: Pies are already sold out, but there are a few exclusives remaining for Deligram readers. DM @caitskeylime ASAP.
Price: $30 for an almost eight-inch pie.

I always had a really strong interest in food. I come from a big food family. My great grandparents owned a diner in Queens and one in New Jersey. My mom grew up spending time there. I grew up in Jersey, so I have a passion for diner culture and I love the energy of restaurants. My first job was at a bagel shop and pizza place called Carnival Spot. I wanted to go to culinary school, but at that time I was a little hesitant because I knew that I didn't want to be a straight-up chef in a restaurant. So I chickened out and went to college [at Johnson & Wales in Providence, Rhode Island] for hospitality. When I moved into the city, I took a job as an assistant, then as a nanny, but I always stayed involved in food in some way. Like, I would work one day a week somewhere.

Five years ago, I went to culinary school. I was a very good and competent home cook, but I wanted to have this skill set. I knew that if I ever had a small place of my own I wanted to be able to do every job. After I graduated, I gave myself a short period of time to go into kitchens and get that real deal experience; I worked at Mission Chinese, Rubirosa, and a couple of other restaurants. The biggest lesson for me to learn was that in order to preserve my love for food, I couldn't depend on it to make a living. Food is what I'm passionate about, and I wanted to continue to be passionate about it, so I created the space for it to be adjacent to how I make my living and what I do for work. It really opened up so many creative possibilities for me. I did a pop up with a close friend of mine [Alana Zeitchik] called Savta, which is Hebrew for grandma, as our homage to our grandmas’ food. Then I started doing a brunch pop up at Sincerely Tommy. I realized that if I could cook there, in a clothing store without a kitchen, I can literally do anything. It was a way to be creatively fulfilled without having to commit to rent and running a day-to-day business.

After that, I started my first home-based business: a soup company called Soupernatural. Every week I had a different menu–I did three or four winters of it. And then, at the beginning of the pandemic, I was sitting at home, soup season was winding down. I was supposed to go to Florida, and I started thinking of my aunt and uncle in the Keys. I have never once in my life been like, “damn, I really want key lime pie.” But I'm so fueled by nostalgia, [thinking of Florida] just triggered it. I looked up some recipes to get the idea: each had condensed milk, each one had lime juice. I’m not a sweet person, so I made it to my own taste preferences, which was tart and salty–I used butter with a higher salt content than average in the crust, and there's sugar in the condensed milk but there’s no added sugar. I took a picture, posted it on Instagram, and was like, “who wants a key lime pie?” I started making them, and people started picking them up.

I realized very quickly that it’s a cult food item that people really want. I had a vision of the logo, and right away I got stickers made. When it was just starting to get warm, I started doing pop ups–at Regina’s, Greenberg’s Bagels, outside my friend Jenna Perry’s hair salon. The word was spreading. Instagram made it easy to blow up, because it’s such a photogenic food item with a colorful logo–it’s literally a smiley face. So I think it was a happy food item for the time. People always ask me, are you going to make something else? There’s so much, for me, in the  power and gratification in mastering one single thing. I can confidently say that this is like the absolute best key lime pie in New York.

Because I'm not in a commercial kitchen regularly, there is a capacity limit on what I can do. And it's also just like, how much can I physically do? I've never had help. Generally with pop ups, I do pre-sales and I’ll make 100– 50 on one day, 50 the next. And I’ve definitely been streamlining my process. At the beginning, I was hand juicing all the limes and grinding all the graham crackers. But I love where it is now.

I have two main goals. One, I want to expand the business by doing more out-of-town pop ups. I have a huge following in Philadelphia. I just did a pop up in Boston. I would love to do more. That's been really rewarding. And two, I want to continue to grow the presence in New York. This winter, I'm focusing on getting into more restaurants. Right now, I’m in two restaurants–Brooklyn Hots in Clinton Hill and Oddly Enough in Bed-Stuy–and I just got into a coffee shop called Rita and Maria, also in Bed-Stuy. I definitely want to do more. I would love to get into some stores and coffee shops. A lot of people have contacted me to ask if I could ship them. They freeze really well, so that could be an option in the future.

Story by Sarah Leon. 
Photos by Teddy Wolff for The Deligram. 
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.