Where to Get Paczki and Other Fat Tuesday Treats in 2025

WTTW / by Dan Hautzinger / February 24, 2025

Chicagoans are big fans of dessert – at least that’s the takeaway from compiling a list of sweet treats for Fat Thursday and Fat Tuesday, the days in which Christians historically use up all the delectable ingredients that they give up during the period of fasting known as Lent. There are plenty of treats traditionally eaten during this last hurrah of feasting and celebration, from the cardamom-scented semlor of Swedes to the colorful king cake of New Orleans’ Mardi Gras to the famed pączki of Poland, the latter of which have become so popular in Chicago that Fat Tuesday is now sometimes called Pączki Day. (Poles traditionally eat the doughnuts on Fat Thursday, which falls on February 27 this year.)

By our count (and we probably missed some), almost 50 bakeries, restaurants, stores, and other establishments offer pączki on and leading up to Fat Tuesday (March 4 this year), and many of them make hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of the doughnuts. (Take a look at how one popular Polish bakery makes so many pączki this time of year.) Plenty aren’t even Polish; we noted at least three cannoli-inspired pączki at bakeries both Italian and not. Clearly Chicagoans are scarfing down these fried pillows in impressive quantities. Read More Here.