SCRANTON, Pa. — A steady stream of customers stopped by the Minooka Pastry Shop in Scranton all with one item in mind—paczkis.
"I got all these delicious doughnuts every year we wait for them," John Melnick said.
Fat Tuesday is the one day each year when paczkis are on the menu at Minooka Pastry.
Bob Zakreski is the co-owner of the bakery and says there was a line when they opened and another at lunchtime. Despite the threat of bad weather, they still wanted to make sure they had enough paczki to go around and made about 300 dozen of the popular holiday treat.
"It's like a super doughnut. We fry them a little darker. It's a sweeter dough that has a little bit of sugar in it, and we also put a lot of filling in it," Zakreski said.
Eddie Tokarski from Old Forge can attest to those claims.
"Very tasty, and they are really filled. Yeah, they're not skimped. They're filled right to the top. They're stuffed."
Eddie and his wife Pat make this a tradition each year and end up buying more and more every time.
"We get the lemon; we get two of each. We buy four different boxes with two of each in them and give them to the kids," Pat Tokarski said.
After Fat Tuesday, there's no break for these employees as they expect to stay busy for Valentine's Day.