Hungry Metro Detroiters line up for paczki
Hamtramck — It's Black Friday for foodies.
It's a last taste of decadence before a season of denial and penance.
It's Fat Tuesday. Paczki Day, as Metro Detroiters know it.
For Sunca "Sandy" Bakic, Paczki Day at the Martha Washington Bakery (10300 block of Joseph Campau), which has been in the family's hands since 1973, is a special time. She remembers the days when Fat Tuesday was just a local tradition, mostly enjoyed by Polish residents of the Polish enclave.
Things changed in the 1970s, Bakic said, as the media caught wind and newspaper readers and television viewers took notice. (In 2008, media personality Mo Rocca paid a high-profile visit, and today, TV trucks set up shop right outside).
These days, Fat Tuesday is a full-blown Metro Detroit tradition — Polish or not, Catholic or not. (These days, with a Muslim-majority City Council, Hamtramck is best known as one of the more diverse suburbs in the region, not just a home to its Poles.)
At Hamtramck bars, Paczki Day for adults
LeBron Nelms of Detroit works afternoons and would've normally been asleep at 10:15 a.m. He cut into his sleep schedule to stand in line for more than an hour at Martha Washington to bring in paczki for his co-workers.
Nelms, 54, was a first-timer in the line, but was plenty familiar with the sweets he was waiting for.
"I'm out here for myself as well," Nelms admitted. "I love paczki."
Isaac Messer, 19, came to Martha Washington on the recommendation of a friend. He, too, endured the hour wait, all for one of the more simple orders the bakery would fulfill: a dozen custard.
This year, demand for paczki was so robust that Martha Washington opened at 5 a.m. on Monday and has been running hot ever since. The bakery had to cut off preorders on Saturday because there just wasn't enough space to store them all.
Its four most popular offerings are raspberry, custard, strawberry, and depending on the year, either blueberry, lemon or cherry, Bakic said.
"This year, people really like buttercream," Bakic added.
Bakic described Paczki Day as a "happy time" at the bakery.
"My favorite thing is to look at the faces in line," Bakic said. "All those smiles, even after waiting."
Bakic said she wished it was like this every day, not just once a year.
But then Fat Tuesday would be a day, not a holiday.
Perhaps no bakery in Hamtramck is as identified with Paczki Day as New Palace Bakery on Joseph Campau.
Suzy Ognanovich, whose family owns New Palace, explained the tradition.
"Back in the day, mothers and grandmothers would try to clear out their cupboards with butter and everything and they'd make paczki,” Ognanovich said Tuesday morning. "The next day you would start the Lent, the fasting."
"I live in Ann Arbor and I came down for this," Rita Williams interjected. "This is the place that has the best paczki in the state of Michigan."
"It's tradition," Ognanovich added. "Our recipe is an authentic, old-fashioned recipe, and we make them from scratch. We use the finest ingredients, and we make it with love."
Tradition is part of it. But in recent years, New Palace has rolled out a new flavor each year to complement the old standards like apple, strawberry and lemon. This year's new flavor: peaches and cream.
For Randy Gibson of Detroit, the long lines at New Palace are a feature of Paczki Day, not a bug. He could have ordered ahead, but that would've detracted from the communal experience that makes the long waits, often in bitter cold, worth it.
Gibson left the bakery just after 7 a.m., with several dozen paczki in hand. He had waited in line since 3:30 to get them, on one of the snowiest days of 2016.
"(Paczki Day) is a great community event," Gibson said. "You really see the positive side of Detroit. I've been out here in the freezing rain, in snowstorms, and when it's been 20 below. I never pre-order because I like hanging out in line."
Pre-ordering, Gibson said, would be like getting Paczki from the grocery store — same food, but not the same experience.
Calorie counts aren't the only thing that runs high on Paczki Day. Emotions do, too.
One customer was annoyed that pre-orders got to move to the front of the line, and let Ognanovich know it.
Kushal Nargundkar of Dearborn Heights was last in line at 7 a.m. If it were any other day, he'd be at his desk, working. On Fat Tuesday, he punched in and came back out to bring back a dozen paczki for the office.
"Not that I'm trying to be fat," Nargunkar said.