North St. Louis sausage maker who fed the pope found recipe for success

"I just love the people," said Barbara Piekutowski, who waits behind the counter for customers on Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2022 at Piekutowski's European Style Sausage in Hyde Park. Photo by Laurie Skrivan, [email protected]

"This machine is at least 100 years old," said Ted Piekutowski, operates a stuffer to make Kra-Kow sausage on Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2022 at Piekutowski's European Style Sausage in Hyde Park. Ted is one of the few family members that knows the family recipes and ever operates the stuffer. Photo by Laurie Skrivan, [email protected]

ST. LOUIS — Piekutowski’s, a north city sausage shop, fed Krakow Archbishop Karol Jozef Wojtyla in 1969. When he revisited St. Louis in 1999, this time as Pope John Paul II, his entourage took a bunch of the artisanal meats home with them.

Odd that it might be, there isn’t so much as a billboard to coax drivers off of nearby Interstate 70, into the Hyde Park neighborhood, where the sausage has been made and sold for generations.

Barbara Piekutowski weighs a mail order of meat on Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2022, at Piekutowski's European Style Sausage in Hyde Park. In her 80s, she still works 6 days a week. "I just love the people," said Piekutowski.

“Pope John Paul II ate Piekutowski’s sausage. Now he’s a saint. Exit now!”

Or maybe:

“Pontiff ‘Likes’ Piekutowski’s. Turn on Salisbury Street.”

If not that, perhaps speed up the production process, blend in more filler, live off the fruits of departed elders.

Ted and Barbara Piekutowski aren’t having any of that kind of talk. Not their style. Ted, whose father took over the business in 1940, said cutting corners isn’t how they’ve done things all these years.

“That’s why people always come down for it,” Ted, dressed in a white apron, said of the sausage. He was bellied up to a plate of it himself for a late lunch in back. “It stays the same.”

There’s no need to advertise.

“People do it for us,” said Barbara, gnawing on an end piece left over from getting a large order out the door for the Police Department. “It’s not packaged. It’s all cut fresh.”

"This is what I like to to call my Polish gym. I have stairs, a sauna and weights," said Cory Piekutowski, the grandson of owners Ted and Barbara Piekutowski, who loads racks of Polish sausage into the smoker on Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2022 at Piekutowski's European Style Sausage in Hyde Park. Photo by Laurie Skrivan, [email protected]

In their early 80s, they still show up for work, Monday through Saturday, at the old corner store, 4100 North Florissant Avenue. Especially leading up to Christmas. Barbara runs the cash register in front. Ted grinds the beef and pork, packs some of it in natural casings, guards the recipe.

“That’s why we get along so well,” Barbara said. “He works back there. I stay up here.”

Ted has two words of marriage advice: Yes, dear.

“It doesn’t matter if you do it or not,” he said of spousal requests. “It makes them feel better.”

They married Oct. 26, 1963, at the Shrine of St. Joseph, 1220 North 11th Street. Part of the satisfaction that came from feeding Pope John Paul II is Ted’s Polish ancestry. They’ve also been Roman Catholic their entire lives. They grew up in north St. Louis and today live in the Spanish Lake area of north St. Louis County.

Buck Knott, center, and his wife, Tina Stelmacki-Knott, far left, share a laugh with another customer on Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2022, as they leave Piekutowski's Sausage Shop in St. Louis' Hyde Park neighborhood with their purchases. The European-style sausage maker has been supplying many families with meats, including for the holidays, for several generations.

They’ve weathered church consolidations and continue to. They are registered at Holy Name of Jesus Parish, in Bellefontaine Neighbors, which, like the rest of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, faces possible closure or merger from “All Things New,” an ambitious effort underway that is supposed to change the regional Catholic experience.

“The whole damn thing is a mess,” Ted said. “By consolidating, you lose a lot of people.”

Holy Name of Jesus was formed by a 2005 merger that covers 35 square miles of terrain. The new parish combined Corpus Christi, Our Lady of Good Counsel, St. Catherine of Alexandria, St. Jerome, St. Pius X and part of St. Christopher. According to the archdiocese, it also shares “in the heritage” of many other former parishes in north city and county, including: St. Adalbert, St. Louis de Marillac, St. Lucy, St. Francis Xavier Cabrini, Our Lady of the Rosary, Our Lady of Loretto, St. Aloysius and Transfiguration.

“It may have to happen,” Ted said of “All Things New.” “It’s not a good thing. It took a long time for people from the different parishes to come together. I hate to say it. Every church has cliques.”

He said the priest even tried to change the seating around.

“It never did any good,” he said.

“This machine is at least 100 years old,” said Ted Piekutowski, as he operates a stuffer to make Kra-Kow sausage on Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2022, at Piekutowski’s European Style Sausage in Hyde Park. Ted is one of the few family members who knows the family recipes and operates the stuffer.

Laurie Skrivan photos, Post-Dispatch

Ted recognized complexities. When his grandparents were alive, priests were like gods. Their word carried enormous weight. Today, he said, their pastor says they need to recruit more families and it doesn’t seem to go anywhere.

“The kids’ days are over,” Ted said.

And yet generations of families still come to buy sausage.

“People have come here for years and years, then their kids come back and their grandkids come,” Ted said.

Why aren’t people sticking with the Catholic Church?

“I am told the church doesn’t appeal to them anymore,” he said. “They don’t derive any benefit. Then, when they are older, they might come back because of a need to develop a closeness to God.”

He nodded at his son-in-law, a firefighter who also works in the sausage shop. His mother, the matriarch of a large family, taught in a Catholic school. Once she died, things changed.

“We just kind of fell out of it,” said son-in-law Mark Koch, 52.

A grandson, who tends the smoker and does other tasks at the shop, doesn’t attend church either.

A bust of Pope John Paul II is displayed behind the counter on Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2022 at Piekutowski’s European Style Sausage in Hyde Park. The business provided food for him during his visit to St. Louis in 1999.

“Parish life isn’t what it used to be,” Ted said. “People were always together and doing things.”

Priests were available 24/7.

“We had to go to church every morning,” Barbara said of attending Catholic school in the neighborhood.

Unlike Ted, Barbara said she stopped going to church about seven years ago. She said church is different.

“I can pray at home,” she said.

Tacked up in the clutter of the shop is a personal card from St. Louis Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski. He thanked them for a gift of sausage, saying it reminded him of his grandmother’s kitchen in Baltimore.

What could the archbishop tell you to get you back in church?

“He ain’t gonna tell me nothing,” Barbara said. “It’s up to the people, if they want to go. I get more satisfaction praying at home.”

Finances are a key piece, even for the old sausage shop.

“If we depended on the neighborhood, we’d starve to death,” said Ted.

They also stay put because their equipment is old. They’d have to upgrade to stainless steel and other modern technologies if they moved to a new location.

"I have been driving here for 40 years. I am Polish and I love Polish sausage. My mom is 80 and she used to take me here," says Jim Brand, of Cuba, who drove in with his nephew Adam, left, to pick up Christmas sausage for his family on Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2022, at Piekutowski's European Style Sausage in Hyde Park.

Besides, more than enough people are willing to come in from long distances, even after a big recall in December 2008.

“We aren’t out to screw the people,” Ted said. “We give them a fair shake. That’s what keeps us going.”

He said they aren’t seeking new business. It’s hard enough keeping up with loyal followers.

Much like churches, many of their customers are from the “C and E” crowd — Christmas and Easter. They come into the old shop, often telling stories about how their grandparents used to buy sausage there during the holidays.

Piekutowski’s fills their stomachs. Hearts, too.

Ronald Schodroski of south St. Louis County watches as Connie Piekutowski-Koch slices his order of Krakow sausage on Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2022, at Piekutowski's Sausage Shop in St. Louis' Hyde Park neighborhood. The European-style sausage maker has been operating for decades. Photo by Christian [email protected]

Barbara Piekutowski works the cash register on Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2022, as customers place and pick up orders during a busy day at Piekutowski's Sausage Shop in St. Louis' Hyde Park neighborhood. The European-style sausage maker has been operating for decades. Photo by Christian [email protected]

Mark Koch, foreground, and his wife, Connie Piekutowski-Koch, left, cut cheeses and sausages for customers on Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2022, at Piekutowski's Sausage Shop in St. Louis' Hyde Park neighborhood. The European-style sausage maker has been operating for decades. Photo by Christian [email protected]

A note with the word closed states they are no longer accepting any orders for December 23rd as seen on the wall onTuesday, Dec. 13, 2022 at Piekutowski's European Style Sausage in Hyde Park. Photo by Laurie Skrivan, [email protected]

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