Fresh Pierogi

Polish dumplings filled with potato and cheese, sauerkraut or meat, boiled and then pan-fried with butter and onions. They're part of the region's deep Polish roots.

🏆 Where to get the best fresh pierogi

1 Polish Nook Niagara Falls · 🏠 Locally owned An old-fashioned, family-owned Polish restaurant and bar on Cudaback Avenue, serving the same family recipes since 1964.
2 Gadawski's Restaurant Niagara Falls · 🏠 Locally owned A family-run Polish restaurant on East Falls Street, known for its Friday fish fry, fresh pierogi, golabki and Polish sausage.

📜 A little history

Pierogi are dumplings filled with potato and cheese, sauerkraut, meat or fruit. They arrived with the Polish immigrants who built Buffalo's East Side "Polonia" in the late 1800s, centered on St. Stanislaus Church in the Broadway-Fillmore neighborhood. By 1940 more than 75,000 people of Polish descent lived in Buffalo, one of the largest such communities in the country.

The Broadway Market, started in 1888 to serve that community, is still the place to find them. The busiest time is the weeks before Easter, when temporary vendors join the year-round stalls and shoppers line up for pierogi, butter lambs and Polish baked goods. Pierogi are also a fixture at church festivals and Polish restaurants, and on Dyngus Day, the Easter Monday party Buffalo says is the biggest in the country.

Did you know? WIVB reported that one Broadway Market vendor, Babcia's Pierogi, sells up to 350,000 pierogi in a single Easter season.