He used to sell desserts in his yard. Now Coconut Grove’s Key lime pie guy has a new shop
Once, the Key Lime Pie Guy of Coconut Grove made his desserts in his tiny home and sold them from a rickety wooden stand with a pink umbrella in his front yard.
Now, his neighbors and fans from around Miami don’t have to brave heat, rain, wind or aggressive insects to buy them. Piemaker Joshua Abril has finally opened his beloved Fookem’s Fabulous shop at a brick-and-mortar location on Grand Avenue.
Abril calls the move “absolutely amazing.”
“On a personal level, I’m no longer at risk of my girlfriend kicking me out, and I’m not risking dengue fever with all the mosquitoes,” he says, laughing. “I’ll tell customers that when they come, and they say, ‘We didn’t want to be rude, but when you went inside to get the pie at your house, we would be getting eaten alive outside.’ ”
Abril, who was working as an associate producer for a reality show when the COVID pandemic shut down his job, started making his citrusy pies with a sea salt Graham cracker crust in 2020. The work kept him busy. With no advertising budget, he rode around town selling them from his bike cart and set up a stand in his front yard on Oak Avenue.
The pies drew long lines and satisfied customers. Word of the pies’ perfection even made it to Broward County: Robb Tallas, the goaltenders coach for the NHL champion Florida Panthers, ordered and ate a Fookem’s Fabulous out of the Stanley Cup. This act made history: Abril’s Key lime pie was the first ever eaten out of the trophy.
The new shop shares space with the boutique Maya Hatcha in the west Grove and sells full-sized pies ($30) and individual ones ($6-$7). All the flavors the brand has become known for are available: guava, mango, coconut, pineapple, pistachio, even a seasonal pumpkin Key lime pie (Abril adds different flavor infusions to his creations to add a little diversity).
The space has offered Abril the one thing guaranteed to make his life easier: Everything is under one roof (the key word there for a once-outdoor business in Miami is “roof”). He can also sell sandwiches, coffee and canned sodas to increase his revenue stream and is no longer bound by the rules of cottage law the way he was when he was working out of his home.
“It doesn’t feel like I’m pretending to run a business anymore,” Abril says. “It has made things efficient.”
He’ll still supply pies to local restaurants and stores like Josh’s Premium Meats as well as stock the Key lime pie vending machine at Julia & Henry’s, a food hall in downtown Miami.
The new store has inspired Abril to consider how to grow Fookem’s over time, a process he expects to evolve.
“I’m still 95 percent a one-man show,” he said. “I’m figuring it out as I go. People expect me to expand as a bakery, but I don’t think I’m going to do that.”
Instead, he’s considering highlighting Floribbean items, an idea that pays tribute to West Grove’s Bahamian history. He hopes eventually to bottle his jerk seasoning and maybe fire up a grill out front once a week and make jerk chicken. Maybe he’ll even start a jerk festival at some point.
Paying tribute to Coconut Grove, particularly the West Grove, is important to Abril, a Miami native. Skyrocketing rents and new developments are changing the face of the neighborhood he loves.
“Coconut Grove has become financially tougher for someone trying to start a small business,” he says. “This neighborhood used to pride itself on its availability to people with no means and a lot of ambition, so it’s deeply daunting. My dad’s Cuban and my mom is from Providence, Rhode Island, but I’m from South Florida. I’m sick of having a place I loved, that played a part in my life, slip away.”
Fookem’s Fabulous
Where: 3606 Grand Ave., Coconut Grove
Hours: 5:30-8:30 p.m. Monday-Friday; 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Saturday; 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Sunday
More information: www.fookemsfabulous.com or 305-699-2122
