Pierogie Place Expands Beyond Boardwalk Food In Ocean City

OCEAN CITY, NJ — When walking along the Ocean City boardwalk, there’s no shortage of pizza and fried foods to indulge in. After taking note of this, Dan and Liz Kulchyckyj decided to bring something different to Ocean City this summer — sweet and savory pierogies.

The Pierogie Place serves boiled pierogies that are filled with potatoes and paired with an array of flavors, like cheese, onions and sauerkraut. Their sweet pierogies are stuffed with strawberries, blueberries or sweet cheese.

After opening their first Pierogie Place in Wildwood last summer, they expanded into Ocean City to open a second restaurant at 1348 Boardwalk in June.

“There were a lot of people who questioned it initially — pierogies on the boardwalk,” Dan said. “Because they associate it with pizza, hamburgers, hot dogs and we’re doing something different."

Liz and Dan have been married for 26 years, and are both of Ukrainian descent. They both remember eating lots of pierogies with their families as they grew up in the United States.

“There was probably a pierogi put next to us when we were born,” Dan said. “We ate them all our life. Our kids ate them all their lives.”

Dan and Liz spent about 22 years living in Ukraine for work. As the couple raised their three children, they always tossed around the idea of opening their own pierogi restaurant.

Their family had been living in Malta last year when they took a trip back to the U.S. in March to celebrate Dan’s mother’s birthday. As the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, all flights back to Malta were suddenly canceled.

“We could not get back. We were supposed to be here for two weeks and we literally were here for seven months,” Liz said. Uncertain as to when they would be able to return home, and with boundless time suddenly on their hands, they decided there was no better time to open their pierogi shop.

The Kulchyckyjs’ family business has now evolved into two locations, with a third restaurant in the works, which is slated to open at Rowan University’s campus in the winter. Both locations share a similar black-and-white aesthetic with a walk-up counter that is illuminated by string lights in the evening.

After placing an order, pierogies are prepared in minutes and can be topped with a customer’s choice of sour cream, apple sauce or caramelized onions.

Dan and Liz sampled as many as 40 pierogies in search of ones that tasted like her grandmother’s. Their quest was especially challenging since her grandmother never left behind a written recipe.

“It was important to come close to my grandmother’s recipe that we all loved,” Liz said. “That’s probably the coolest part is that the traditional — the potato and onion are like my grandmother’s that we grew up on.”

In designing the quick-service restaurant, Liz also took notes from her mother, who owns a Ukrainian restaurant in Watkins Glen, New York, where pinching the dough of each individual pierogi can be a labor of love.

“We get inspiration from mom," Liz said. "I knew if my mom at 73 years old can do it, we can do it.”

Though the pierogies have traditional Eastern European flavors, they are unique in that they are served boiled. Pierogies are often pan-fried before they are served.

“They are definitely healthier not fried. I felt strongly about that,” Liz said. “There’s plenty of other pierogi places out there that do and we have our own unique niche.”

The Pierogie Place’s customers have been a mix of curious people trying the food for the very first time, while others are longtime pierogi enthusiasts like Dan and Liz, who grew up eating and making pierogies alongside their grandparents.

“So many of our customers say, ‘We grew up on them. Are they going to be as good as my grandmother’s?’” Liz said. “And other people are excited to have another option, and a unique option.”

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