Today is officially paczki day! It is the day we can all go mad and enjoy these local fried dough treats in either classic flavors like lemon or raspberry, or in fun flavors like churro toast crunch and chocolate mocha.
Some of the most fun flavored paczki come from the people behind some of the best restaurants in town. That is Union Joints. They are the owners of multiple restaurants in Metro Detroit, including Union Woodshop, Honcho in downtown Clarkston, Vinsetta Garage in Berkley, and Fenton Fire Hall.
Union Joints co-owner Curt Catallo took time this morning to talk to Tati Amare about how his team comes up with new paczki flavors every year, and about the new things people can expect from his restaurant group.
According to Catallo, the paczki are the brain child of the pastry chef, Chef Jen, and her team. Every year they come up with 16 unique flavor ideas for paczki. They then ask people to pick which will go in the final four-pack through a tournament style online bracket. This year’s final four were the Boston Cooler, Churro Toast Crunch, General Tsao Cheesecake and Chocolate Mocha. The flavors were a hit. Union Joints says they got the most pre-orders for paczki ever, over 1600 of them, and they sold out of their leftover packs early Tuesday morning.
Besides paczki, Union Joints has several other things in the works. First is their new Union Joints app. The app lets people order easily from all the Union Joints restaurants and lets people stay up to date with the group’s offerings like paczki or the new donuts they release every quarter. Catallo found that people want to support their local restaurants and this app just makes it easier to do it. The app is available for both Android and Apple devices.
In addition to the app, Union Joints has also launched Union Provisions website where people can get their new canned cocktails and snack packs. These can also be ordered via the Union Joints app. To see which cocktail flavors are available watch the video above.