Take-home pierogies coming to City Center Farmers Market (2024)

FLORENCE— City Center Farmers Market visitors soon will be able to take home frozen pierogies and other treats from a new business.

The Yureks, who some might recognize as the owners of Buddy’s by Jeffries Creek on West Palmetto Street, are bringing a kitchen dedicated to pierogi production from Colorado to Florence with some help from the city.

Jeremy Yurek and Katherine Yurek will take up all three tenant spaces inside the market with the pierogi production, a space to support Buddy’s and an ice cream-making operation.

The City Center Farmers Market is open 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays.

Visitors can expect the Yureks' typical flagship pierogies, such as a “Pizza-rogie” that has potato, cheese, pulled pork, tomato, basil and mozzarella cheese. Jeremy, who operates Baba and Pops Pierogis, said they make dessert pierogies, such as apple pie pierogi.

Flavors may change or new ones created once they open the production space, he said.

“It’s something that you can always be creating something new,” he said.

The original recipe for the pierogies comes from far up his family tree. His great-grandparents brought the recipe to the Americas when they moved from Poland to Canada nearly 100 years ago, but the recipe for his family’s filled dumplings probably goes further back, he said.

He and his family always made pierogies from scratch whenever they got together.

“That was our family's most coveted food,” he said.

Yurek was a singer before he took up running restaurants. He even toured for a time in college but decided to go through culinary school when he didn’t hit it big.

“I wanted to do what I still had a passion for,” he said. “And the next biggest thing was food.”

He started his foray into food service where he grew up, in Colorado, as the food truck craze was taking off in Denver.

The growth of food trucks there, he said, was helped by the growth of small breweries that had to find ways to sell food without a big kitchen or even one at all.

The answer was the food truck. Jeremy and his wife, Katherine, opened their food truck in 2012.

They would also set up in some farmers markets, which introduced them to what would become the biggest part of the business— take-home frozen pierogies.

“By the time we finished in Colorado, we could do 15 farmers markets a week throughout the state and just send people out with a tent and a cooler with produce, and you’re good to go,” Jeremy said.

The typical recipe, he said, consisted of potato, cheese and sometimes sauerkraut and mushrooms. He started experimenting when he went full-time, though. One of the most popular pierogies were the ones filled with chilies and cheese. A lot of other southwestern-styled ones were popular. too.

The take-home pierogies were so big they stopped using their food truck and switched from ready-to-eat to making and shipping frozen ones.

The dumplings would pop up in local shops and could even be shipped nationwide through Goldbelly, a service that allows people to order food from locations across the country.

The Yureks made the dough and fillings from scratch, then filled, folded and cut each pierogi by hand. They did this in spaces they could rent out in the area.

“It's not for the faint of heart,” Jeremy said.

The Yureks found a permanent location in Aurora, just outside of Denver, on March 13, 2020, with help from a grant from the city to build out the location. The Yureks and the landlords also put money toward it.

The building eventually turned into a restaurant out front to serve ready-to-eat pierogies and a production space in the back to make frozen ones to sell and ship.

But the business was shut down almost instantly as COVID-19 spread.

The Yureks went to whatever farmers markets they could, did curbside pickup and delivered to people’s houses if they needed to. They made more than 15,000 pierogies every weekend in 2020.

“We were doing anything to keep the doors open and keep our business going,” Katherine said.

The Yureks sold the restaurant about two years ago as the area around it wasn’t growing the way they thought it would.

So instead of waiting to retire to South Carolina like they had always wanted to, they decided to move here and bring pierogi production with them.

Pierogi production will take place at the City Center’s Farmers Market. The farmers market opened at its 200 Sanborn St. location in 2020.

They’re doing this thanks in part to $43,500 from the city.

The grants are one facetof a larger effort to revitalize an area Assistant City Manager Clint Moore called the railroad corridor, which stretches from the Farmers Market to the Florence Mall.

“We really wanted to promote the growth and sustainability of our local food economy,” Moore said.

The Yureks hope to one day sell their pierogies at the Soda City Farmers Market in Columbia and even some in Charleston. They also want to get pierogies in local bars or restaurants.

Jeremy Yurek said he hopes to have pierogi production up and running in early March.