How Detroit adopted and expanded the paczki tradition for Fat Tuesday
If it's Fat Tuesday in Detroit, you will find bakery boxes piled high with icing-coated or sugar-dusted, deep-fried, fluffy doughnuts called paczki in plural or paczek in singular.
The treat, pronounced punch-key in plural or pon-check in singular, has its origins in Polish Catholic traditions of eating up fattening foods before their religious fasting and penitential season of Lent began.
The calendar date for the start of Lent, and in turn, the date of Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras as the date is known elsewhere in the U.S., varies based on when Easter is observed. This year, Fat Tuesday is Feb. 17.
Michigan residents, particularly those in Metro Detroit, not only adopted the treat as a local favorite but promoted the idea to a wider audience and invented cultural crossover tastes.
The story of how the treat exploded beyond ethnically Polish neighborhoods into a Midwest regional favorite is often attributed to a grocery store campaign promoted by Carl Richardson of Rochester, who died in 2016. His obituary called him "Mr. Paczki" because while Richardson was employed at the former Farmer Jack's grocery chain based in Detroit, he consulted and created the marketing program that promoted supermarket sales of the treat.
In the meantime, locally owned bakeries across the Midwest continued to bake and promote their versions.
The best advice? Plan ahead and consider pre-orders and even paying for shipping. Popular bakeries are known to have lines or limited supplies for in-person sales as Fat Tuesday begins.
In Metro Detroit these days, paczki are typically twice the size of a typical doughnut; and some say, larger than the ones enjoyed in Poland. Available fillings vary by location, but typically include apricot, lemon, strawberry, raspberry, chocolate, vanilla custard or apple. Prune is considered a "traditional" flavor when and where that is sold; rose hip jam is another rarely-seen but traditional filling.
Beyond that range, Detroiters have let their imagination run wild.
There was a strawberry jalepeno or horseradish orange marmalade available this year for orders from Pietrzyk Pierogi in Detroit. And a banana split variety was sold at Heritage Bakery in Livonia during 2024.
Should you have had a taste for paczki off season, New Palace Bakery in Hamtramck offered a pumpkin custard filling last fall and a peppermint filling during the Christmas season.
Here are some of the other ways someone in Metro Detroit can celebrate the treats of Fat Tuesday 2026.
Paczki beer
The Eastern Market Brewing Company of Detroit is celebrating 2026 with the return of its Paczki Beer. The beverage was introduced in 2000.
Paczki vodka
Detroit City Distillery has celebrated the season for several years with a limited edition paczki vodka, using Hamtrack paczki as the flavor base. The 2026 release party was scheduled for Feb. 14, showcasing flavors of both its original raspberry paczki and an orange cream paczki.
Dubai chocolate paczki
Paczki got a flavor twist this year from Cantoro Italian Market in Plymouth, which has introduced a Dubai chocolate version filled with pistachio cream, topped with crushed knafeh, and finished with Dubai chocolate.
Coney paczki
American Coney Island is serving up Coney Paczki again – a Detroit-style coney dog with chili and mustard that is tucked into a Polish pastry rather than the traditional bun. This has been a tradition since at least 2018 at the Coney Island, but it's a one-day only snack.
Non-edible paczki
If you'd like to celebrate the tradition of paczki without actually eating one (or more), there are options in Metro Detroit.
The Polish Art Center in Hamtramck sells a felt Christmas ornament depicting a paczek (single packzi). And the Pure Detroit shop sells a City Beautiful Hamtramck strawberry paczki-scented candle in a jar.
