Wolf Bakery Rolls Out The Paczki For Fat Tuesday In Evergreen Park

EVERGREEN PARK, IL — It was a bustling afternoon the day before Fat Tuesday at Wolf’s Bakery in Evergreen Park, with cars waiting like vultures for parking spaces to open as customers ran out with coveted boxes of paczki.

Home of the original lemon fluff cake, as well as South Side Irish Soda Bread, butter pecan coffee cake, atomic cake and chocolate donuts, is rolling out the paczki for Fat Tuesday, which falls on March 4.

Wolf Bakery is rolling out the paczki

The venerable Wolf’s Bakery has been deep-frying dough for Fat Tuesday since 1939. Wolf’s is offering paczki (pronounced “ponchkey”) with 12 flavors, including strawberry, lemon fluff, cherry, blueberry, vanilla custard, chocolate custard, raspberry, pineapple, cheese, apricot, prune and apple. The bakery prides itself on its FRESH strawberry paczki.

The secret to good paczki is the dough, with just a squirt of filling otherwise it's just a donut. The paczki tradition dates back to the Middle Ages, when Poles made paczki to use up all the lard, sugar, eggs and fruit in the house before fasting during the Lenten season. "Paczki Day" has since been embraced and celebrated in the heavily Polish-American Midwest on "Fat Tuesday," the last big blowout before Ash Wednesday.

The many flavors of paczki at Wolf's Bakery

The paczki was flying off the shelves on Monday afternoon, where the family owned bakery expects to crank out thousands of the delectable Polish treat.

While Wolf’s will be serving walk-ins on Fat Tuesday, don’t get upset if there is a line. Paczki are $2.80 each and specialty strawberry, banana, peaches and chocolate with cream are $3.80 each.

Wolf’s Bakery, 3241 W. 95th St., Evergreen Park, has been baking goodies on 95th Street since 1939. The bakery will be open for Fat Tuesday, March 4, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.