GET BREAKING NEWS IN YOUR BROWSER. CLICK HERE TO TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS.

Aug. 22, 2022- Doug Drozdowski, 2, makes pierogis in his grandmother's New Jersey kitchen in the early 1980s. She was born in Krakow, Poland, and brought her family recipe to the U.S. COURTESY DOUG DROZDOWSKI

Aug 3, 2022 - Doug Drozdowski of Wilmington, co-owner with his wife Michelle of Polish Prince Pierogi in Billerica, catches dough coming out of the "sheeter" for consistent thickness as he makes pierogis. JULIA MALAKIE/LOWELL SUN

Aug 3, 2022 - Doug Drozdowski of Wilmington, co-owner of Polish Prince Pierogi in Billerica, fills and crimps sauerkraut pierogis as employee Lynne Smith of Wilmington puts scoops of filling on the dough. They can make about 100 dozen pierogis in four hours with four people, though sauerkraut are slower than average. JULIA MALAKIE/LOWELL SUN

Aug 3, 2022 - Doug Drozdowski of Wilmington, co-owner of Polish Prince Pierogi in Billerica, fills and crimps sauerkraut pierogis as employee Lynne Smith of Wilmington, left, puts scoops of filling on the dough, and Kristine Doonan of Woburn cooks them before freezing. They can make about 100 dozen pierogis in four hours with four people, though sauerkraut are slower than average. JULIA MALAKIE/LOWELL SUN

Aug 3, 2022 - Doug Drozdowski of Wilmington, co-owner with his wife Michelle of Polish Prince Pierogi in Billerica, folds and crimps sauerkraut pierogis. JULIA MALAKIE/LOWELL SUN

BILLERICA — The ingredients for making pierogi dough are deceptively simple: water, eggs, salt, flour and melted butter.

Yet, the technique to making that dough — from the kind of flour, to the temperature of the eggs and the fat content in the butter, even the humidity in the air — can be the dividing line between a run-of-the-mill gummy pierogi and an out-of-this-world yummy pierogi.

Add an “h” to the end of Doug Drozdowski’s first name, and it may be the first sign that he makes the out-of-this-world version of the Polish-style stuffed dumpling, which he said he learned from his grandmother.

“My grandmother on my father’s side was from Krakow, Poland,” said Drozdowski, of Wilmington. “The pierogi was her signature dish. That’s what she was known for. And her dough is a secret family recipe.”

So secret, it isn’t even written down, said Drozdowski, but has been handed down in the old-country oral and hands-on tradition from a doting grandmother to her apprentice-minded grandson. He started making dough at her kitchen table when he was 2 years old.

“My grandmother on my mother’s side was Polish as well. Between my two grandmothers, they both taught me different Polish cuisine,” Drozdowski said.

He graduated from Providence College with a degree in finance, working 20 years in the sales, trading and compliance departments for heavyweight firms like JP Morgan. At home, he kept busy in the kitchen making his favorite family dish.

“My grandmother’s pierogis were so good, and I couldn’t get a good pierogi in the Boston area,” Drozdowski remembers. “I was making them myself for family and friends.”

Some of those friends were his colleagues at his day job.

“I am proud of my Polish heritage, and would frequently bring the Polish food I cooked at home to work to share with my colleagues,” Drozdowski said. “As a joke, they would call me the Polish Prince — like the original Bobby Vinton — and the name stuck.”

Bobby Vinton was a Polish-American pop singer from the 1960s who is famous for hits like “Blue Velvet” and wrote his autobiography, “The Polish Prince.”

His job was in finance, but Drozdowski realized his heart was in the kitchen.

“I hated every minute of finance,” Drozdowski admitted. “In 2007, I decided to do a career change, so I went to Cambridge School of Culinary Arts at night while I worked during the day. I always knew I loved cooking, but I didn’t have any technique.”

Culinary school taught him how to build out sauces, to sauté a dish and blend ingredients. He learned how to set up, organize and manage a working kitchen.

In 2018, his wife, Michelle, gave him the green light to work finance part-time and start his own business,  selling his handmade pierogis at area markets and festivals. The shift brought his business acumen and his culinary skills together. In a nod to his former as well as his fledgling life, he called the business Polish Prince Pierogi.

Initially, Drozdowski rented space at a kitchen incubator in Amesbury. Incubators are designed to help small food businesses launch their products without carrying the costly burden of a brick-and-mortar space. Incubators can be rented by the hour based upon availability and need, and besides the kitchen equipment, includes access to shelf, freezer and dry storage and refrigeration storage.

Drozdowski cooked at the incubator, loaded the pierogis into a 5-foot-b-8-foot trailer, and hit farmers’ markets from around the Merrimack Valley up to New Hampshire and down through the Greater Boston region. The attached trailer had a refrigerator, three-bay sink for washing dishes, handwashing sink and a griddle with a hood to reheat the pierogis. Business was good enough that he started up a side business of selling frozen packaged pierogis from the trailer, too.

“We vacuum seal our products, which takes a special license,” Drozdowski said, “Most pierogi makers around New England don’t do that. They just freeze them. I have a special license for how we package our product, which locks in the freshness.”

Then COVID happened, and the first year of the pandemic shut down all retail food service businesses. Drozdowski had to shift his business model from in-person gatherings and focus solely on what had been a side business of frozen pierogi packages.

“During COVID, all my events were cancelled, so I came up with noncontact delivery of my frozen packaged pierogi,” Drozdowski said. “And that business took off. People were craving a homecooked, comfort-food meal. I was driving all over the Merrimack Valley every weekend doing noncontact delivery. Customers would order during the week, and Saturdays and Sundays I would make my deliveries.”

Ironically, during the shutdown, Drozdowski’s business expanded, and he quit his day job for good. During that time, he found his current retail carryout storefront location at 306 Boston Road in North Billerica.

“It had the bones of what I wanted, but I had to do a lot of work — cleaning it out, putting in new flooring and new equipment to get it open,” Drozdowski said.

Drozdowski still has the trailer, and he still makes the rounds of craft breweries, festivals and community markets, but now he makes his homemade pierogis in his own kitchen using his grandmother’s 100-year-old recipe.

And he’s passing down the family recipe to the next generation of cooks: his children. In much the way he learned the art of making dough and crimping pierogis at his grandmother’s table so long ago, the Drozdowski children, an 11-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son, have grown up helping their father continue the family food tradition.

Aug 3, 2022 - Doug Drozdowski of Wilmington, co-owner with his wife Michelle of Polish Prince Pierogi in Billerica, cuts circles of dough for sauerkraut pierogis. His grandmother used a 3" glass, but he got a 3" donut cutter for speed. JULIA MALAKIE/LOWELL SUN

Aug 3, 2022 - Polish Prince Pierogi employee Lynne Smith of Wilmington puts scoops of sauerkraut filling on the dough. They can make about 100 dozen pierogis in four hours with four people, though sauerkraut are slower than average. JULIA MALAKIE/LOWELL SUN

Aug 3, 2022 - Polish Prince Pierogi employee Lynne Smith of Wilmington puts scoops of sauerkraut filling on the dough. They can make about 100 dozen pierogis in four hours with four people, though sauerkraut are slower than average. JULIA MALAKIE/LOWELL SUN

Aug 3, 2022 - Doug Drozdowski of Wilmington, co-owner with his wife Michelle of Polish Prince Pierogi in Billerica, folds and crimps sauerkraut pierogis. JULIA MALAKIE/LOWELL SUN

“They love it. They help in the kitchen. And they help out at the events,” Drozdowski said with pride.

His pierogis feature traditional Polish fillings such as potato and cheese, meat or sauerkraut, as well as modern creations with buffalo chicken and pulled-pork fillings. Each dumpling that comes off the line is pinched by hand to trap in the succulent filling inside before being boiled in a pot of water. He’s also looking to expand the successful family business.

“My goal this year is to get my wholesale license which would allow me to sell to restaurants or stores, as well as do mail order,” Drozdowski said.

For now, besides selling his pierogis at venues such as the Tewksbury Community Market, Drozdowski’s Billerica storefront at is open for pickup or walk-in business of frozen packaged pierogi several times a week. The menu lists 25 different traditional and nontraditional fillings.

Despite offering those modern flavors, Drozdowski is still an old-country pierogi cook at heart.

“There are machines out there that you can use to pinch the pierogis,” he said. “I looked at some, but I want to keep my product handcrafted. I learned how to pinch by hand from my grandmother, and after some 40 years, I can pinch quicker than those machines.”

We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. We reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.