WASHINGTON — When Bill Glasser graduated from college, he also graduated from his go-to cup of dried noodles and moved on to a slightly more distinguished food of convenience: the pierogi.
鈥淸I realized] there was something other than ramen noodles that you can eat, you know, 20 of them for $2,鈥� Glasser says.
He may have had his fill of the Polish dumpling in his early twenties, but years later, Glasser started craving them again. The Silver Spring resident was wandering Bethesda鈥檚 restaurant-lined sidewalks and realized there was no place to get an American version of the pierogi — or the American version of聽any pocket food, for that matter.
鈥淚n every other culture on the planet, they have their versions — whether it鈥檚 an empanada, a pierogi, a calzone, a Jamaican patty,鈥� says Glasser, 51. 鈥淎nd what you find is that the people who know them — whether they’re kolaches, pierogies, empanadas — they鈥檙e so passionate about them.鈥�
To Glasser, the closest thing to an American pocket food at the time was a Hot Pocket. 鈥淎nd that鈥檚 drunken garbage food,鈥� he says.
So Glasser, a former producer for 鈥淎merica鈥檚 Most Wanted,鈥� saw the opportunity to develop a gourmet dough, fill it with high-quality ingredients, form it into a hand-held fried pocket and brand it 鈥�.鈥�
His initial focus, though, was to create a dough different from traditional pierogies. He wanted the flavor and texture of his Herogie dough to resemble something closer to a pastry.
鈥淚n all of those other foods, the dough is kind of inconsequential 鈥� it鈥檚 really just a wrapper. What I wanted to do was create something that had multi-textures 鈥� I wanted to create Herogies as like the Everlasting Gobstopper effect,鈥� says Glasser, who admits that achieving his idea of the perfect dough delayed the launch of his business by two to three years.
Glasser hired a handful of chefs — including research and development chefs, Ivan Ramen鈥檚 chief operating officer David Poran and a few local restaurateurs — to test variations of dough and experiment with a variety fillings, such as cheeseburger, 聽spinach and feta, bacon and potato and chocolate s鈥檓ores.
Once the team felt confident in their creations, they had to transfer from a small-scale testing phase and find a way to reproduce Herogies in much larger聽quantities. Unlike many local food entrepreneurs, Glasser chose not to start with pop-ups and food carts; he wanted to get his Herogies onto the plates — or into the palms — of the masses. He set his sights on selling Herogies to local restaurants, bars and stadiums.
Glasser also passed on setting up production at a local food incubator space. Because a few of Glasser鈥檚 Herogies contain meat and poultry, and he intends to sell them for resale to bars and restaurants, he is required to make his product in a USDA-inspected facility.
So far, Washingtonians can find Herogies on the menu at Silver Spring鈥檚 . Glasser says he鈥檚 approached a few other sports bars and restaurants in the area, but has encountered some resistance from chefs and conflicts with supplier contracts.
But that鈥檚 not deterring him. Glasser says that with the help of investors, he hopes to open a brick-and-mortar Herogie shop in the District. And he hasn鈥檛 completely dismissed the idea of selling his fried pockets on a food truck. In fact, he already has designs for the truck drawn up.
鈥淚 see this as a new category, not just an appetizer. I really see this as, 鈥楧o you want to go for burgers? Do you want to go for pizza? Do you want to go for Herogies?鈥欌�� Glasser says.
鈥淵ou can fill this with anything and everything, so you can have breakfast, lunch, dinner, late-night desserts, drunk food, sober food, church food. Once you create the concept, this lends itself to being everywhere you want to get food.鈥�
Editor’s Note: Bill Glasser worked as the director of marketing at 草莓传媒 from 1998 to 2001.
