A Break from Burgers

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By Bobbi Mlynar (Contact)

Originally published 01:20 p.m., January 7, 2008
Updated 01:20 p.m., January 7, 2008

Coal-miners and kings have feasted on the little meat-and-vegetable pies for more than 500 years. Now, pasties are available in Emporia.

George Wells and wife Diane, known as Dee Dee, opened the U.P.’ers — pronounced “Yoopers” —Restaurant at 1015 Commercial St. on Dec. 21 and have been selling scores of the meat-and-vegetable pies since then.

George said that pasty — pronounced “pass-tee” — shops are popular in the Upper Peninsula area of Michigan, where Dee Dee was born and reared.

The restaurant is a natural evolution for Wells, who has been smoking briskets and ribs for years and long has wanted to become more involved in preparing food.

“We tried to do this a few years ago, but we couldn’t ever find a building,” he said.

When the former Wheat State Pizza building became available, they bought it.

He had worked at Modine Manufacturing until it closed and she has worked more than 30 years at the Hopkins plant. The pasty restaurant has been a long-time dream of the couple.

“We have one of the best recipes out of Iron Mountain, Mich.,” Wells said. “We changed it just a little bit just so it would be ours.”

The restaurant’s logo features a map of the Upper Peninsula as background for “U.P.’ers,” a name derived, with a different spelling, from a nickname given to people from that area: Yoopers.

The walls are decorated with tributes to U.P.’er humor — the Complaint Department features a mouse trap set with a small red ball and the words “Press the red button” and a bag of dried corn is labeled “chicken dinner.”

The attraction, though, is the pasty.

Pasties have a long history among miners from Cornwall, England; they’re referred to in at least two Shakespearean plays and are reputed to date back at least to the reign of King Henry VIII, according to a pasties history displayed at the restaurant.

“A miner could leave home with a pasty in each pocket and reach in once in a while to warm his hands,” the history states.

Because the ores from mines often contain traces of arsenic that lingered on the miners’ fingers, they held pasties by the crusts and tossed those remnants onto the mine floors.

“The miners believed in ghosts, so the crust was left in the mines for them,” the history states.

When miners from Cornwall came to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to mine iron and copper, they brought their penchant for pasties with them.

The pasties here are made daily from scratch, George said, using ground chuck, potatoes and onions baked in a round mound of flaky pie crust.

“I don’t buy anything that’s made up,” he said.

The Wellses and their daughter, Wanda, begin the long process of preparing pasties and the other foods at about 7:30 a.m. each day and replenish their supply around 4:30 p.m. in time for the dinner crowd. The couple’s granddaughter, Kayla Wells, comes in part-time to help.

They’ve created an assembly line to make the dough, roll out the round disks and spoon on the mix of meat and vegetables. Those are covered with another pastry disk that is tucked into the bottom crust and crimped around the edges to seal them. They’re baked, never fried, to a deep golden brown and set in the heat box to be served.

“It’s all raw — raw meat, raw potatoes, raw onions,” Wanda Wells said, describing the pasties before they’re shuffled into the ovens to bake.

“The little pasty shops up north are more like a take-out,” Wells said. “You can take ‘em like a hamburger and just eat them.”

They can be eaten alone or dressed up with ketchup, ranch dressing, salsa or other favorite condiments .

U.P.’ers offers daily specials, in addition to pasties: hot beef on Mondays, chicken-fried steak on Tuesdays, lasagne on Wednesdays, pork chops on Thursdays, and smoked brisket and ribs on Fridays and Saturdays. Homemade soups, pies and cakes also are available daily, and the Wellses also cater and deliver.

The restaurant is open from 11 a.m. to 9 or 10 p.m. Mondays through Sundays, depending upon customers’ needs.

A grand opening is being planned and will be announced later.