‘An institution’: Mount Prospect bakery is paczki central on Fat Tuesday

Eating the Polish pastries known as paczkis — commonly pronounced poonch-keys or ponch-keys — is a Fat Tuesday tradition before the fasting of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday.

For hundreds in the Northwest Suburbs and beyond, that tradition starts at Central Continental Bakery in Mount Prospect.

What began as Paczki Day for the bakery, which opened in 1979, has evolved into a weeklong festival that manager Bobby Czerniak said is even busier than Christmas. During the fest, the bakery turns into a paczki factory.

“It’s pretty crazy, working 18 hour days,” Czerniak said. “It’s challenging, but we’ve been doing it for so long, we’ve got the routine down.”

Czerniak favors the cannoli paczki, but said the strawberry whipped cream and the Oreo versions are popular as well. Other fillings available Tuesday included apricot, vanilla custard, strawberry and raspberry.

Judging from the crowds filing in and out of the bakery, Tuesday was the paczki equivalent of Black Friday.

Customer Connie West of Rolling Meadows said she buys paczkis for the people she cares for at a nursing home, including a Catholic priest. She purchased six — three filled with cream cheese and three stuffed with whipped cream and strawberry.

Mount Prospect resident Patrisha Mique said buying paczkis at the bakery is a tradition.

“I grew up here. I went to Prospect High School. Every year I come here,” she said, adding that while she enjoys classic flavors like strawberry, she opts for the tiramisu when she is in the mood for something more gourmet.

Paczkis from Central Continental also have been a family tradition for Arlington Heights resident Jake Gasior, one he’ll pass along to 18-month-old daughter Grace, who accompanied him Tuesday.

Vanessa Oertel, who lives in Chicago’s Jefferson Park neighborhood, said the distance is no object.

“This place is an institution,” she said. “This place is amazing.”