Amanda Garrett
Akron Beacon Journal
WWR Article Summary (tl;dr) Entrepreneur Autumn Johnson named the business, “The Pierogi Lady” after her grandmother who taught her how to make the Polish dumplings.
Akron
Marcus Walker never tasted a pierogi until he met Autumn Johnson.
“I said, ‘Where have you been all my life?’ ” — to both to Johnson and pierogi.
Together, the couple now own and operate The Pierogi Lady, which churns out between 20,000 and 30,000 hand-crimped pierogies — in 80 varieties — each week from its private commercial kitchen in Akron’s Middlebury neighborhood.
Johnson, who learned to make the Polish dumplings from her grandmother while growing up in Peninsula, named the business before Walker was her partner.
“If I knew Marcus would come on board full time, I might have called it something else for his sake,” Johnson said.
When Johnson started working The Pierogi Lady booth by himself at fairs and festivals, he said customers often joked that he didn’t look like the pierogi lady.
But as time passed, he’s come to be known among regulars as “the pierogi guy.”
Neither Walker, 36, nor Johnson, 46, began their careers as entrepreneurs.
Walker worked his way up over 10 years from a warehouse worker to a supervisor to a salesman at Alro Steel in Cuyahoga Falls.
And Johnson worked as a restaurant manager for someone else.
When the financial collapsed hit in 2008, Johnson was laid off from the restaurant.
“I tooled around for awhile and decided to do the only thing I knew how to do,” Johnson said.
She made pierogi.
Johnson, who grew up in a house on her grandmother’s property, only remembers her grandmother making potato and cheese pierogi. But Johnson’s dad said she made three other traditional flavors — sauerkraut, prune and apricot.
Johnson and a friend launched a pierogi business around 2010 in Cleveland at the Tremont farmers market.
“It was super windy that day and it kept blowing our flyers everywhere,” Johnson said. “But there was a giant line and we made $400 and it was the best day ever.”
The partnership didn’t last, but Johnson knew the pierogi concept could.
Johnson, who started dating Walker about this time, launched The Pierogi Lady in June 2011.
She started in a kitchen in the basement of the Akron Federal Building, and later moved to the Hartville Marketplace, while also working fairs and festivals.
“Around 2015, things had just started to take off,” Johnson said. “I can’t remember a moment when it happened, but I knew I just couldn’t handle it by myself.”
She had a couple of employees to help make the pierogies, but she needed help with the larger business and she and Walker decided it was time for him to leave Alro Steel and join the pierogi business.
The move worried Johnson’s parents, she said.
“They said he has a good job. He’s got health care. They were looking at (Marcus’) like security,” Johnson said. “But I told them: ‘We just have to do it. I’m not going to make it without him.’ ”
Johnson said it really helped to have someone to talk to about every detail of the business, including financials.
The Pierogi Lady was not only selling the dumplings to families, it was also supplying pierogies to area restaurants and shops.
“Some restaurants and grocery stores don’t pay you immediately…but you’ve already paid your employees, you’ve already paid for your product, but still waiting on check,” Johnson said. “Just worrying over that, it’s been so helpful over the years to have someone reassure you.”
Soon, one of the their clients — the owner of Hudson’s Restaurant — told them that one of the owners of a company that makes Bunny B sauerkraut balls wanted to rent out the company’s former kitchen space in Middlebury.
It was huge, more than 10 times the size of what the The Pierogi Lady was using.
But Johnson and Walker pushed ahead, eventually buying the property and growing The Pierogi Lady staff from three or four employees to 10 or 11.
Then the pandemic hit.
Many restaurants closed, at least in the beginning.
And April through December, their busiest farmer’s market and festival season when Johnson and Walker typically are out every weekend, withered. In 2020, Walker said they only did four events.
So they pivoted: The Pierogi Lady, which had been delivering to homes only in December, started delivering year round.
“That’s really saved us,” Johnson said.
Many of the restaurants have reopened. Besides Hudsons, The Pierogi Lady also provides the pierogies served at Gasoline Alley, On Tap and Johnny J’s Pub.
But The Pierogi Lady is also making 150 to 200 deliveries a week to people in Summit and surrounding counties. It’s so popular, Johnson and Walker said, they will likely continue the service after the pandemic passes.
“We’re looking for a deliver driver…we already have the vans,” said Johnson, adding that finding workers during the pandemic has been challenging.
Deliveries in Summit County are free with a $20 order. Surrounding counties require minimum purchases ranging from $30 to $50 for free delivery.
The pierogies are frozen, come in six-packs and cost $6 or $7 per pack. There are eight pierogies in gluten-free packs and those cost $10.
During the first week of February, The Pierogi Lady menu — which is posted on the company Facebook page — included standard fillings, but also dozens more, including: Stuffed cabbage, sausage gravy, potato cheddar habanero, sauerkraut and roast pork and macaroni and cheese.
There were also 15 varieties of vegan pierogies and more breakfast and dessert pierogies.
Walker’s favorite is the chorizo and cheese.
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“I like things spicy,” he said.
And Johnson’s favorite is Thanksgiving dinner, pierogi stuffed with turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and gravy.
Gravy, in a pierogi?
The key to keeping it from leaking is the crimp, Johnson said.
“If any filling is in the seal, the pierogi will come open,” she said.
That’s one of the reasons The Pierogi Lady seals all of its pierogies by hand instead of machine.
“We don’t want to be like Mrs. T’s,” she said. “We want the personal homemade of it.”
At a glance
Business: The Pierogi Lady
Owners: Autumn Johnson and Marcus Walker
Founded: 2011
Menu: Check their Facebook page for most up-to-date list:
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