Piroshky Piroshky

Vladimir and Zina Kotelnikov arrived from the Soviet Union with little beyond a family recipe and Vladimir's early training at an Estonian bakery called Tallinn. With their son Oliver, and with $1,200 raised partly from donations by friends and fellow immigrants, they opened a 350-square-foot stall at Seattle's Pike Place Market on October 24, 1992, betting that Eastern European hand pies would find an audience in the Pacific Northwest.

The bakery built its menu around piroshky, filled savory and sweet pastries, blending the family's own recipes with local ingredients. The gamble paid off: lines out the door became a fixture of the Market, and the bakery's profile grew further after Anthony Bourdain featured it on his television show No Reservations.

The business has since passed to Olga Sagan, who has carried the Kotelnikovs' original stall into a network of locations spanning Pike Place, Kent, Bellingham, and multiple downtown Seattle addresses. What began as one immigrant family's modest market stall, built on borrowed money and a single Estonian-trained baker's know-how, is now one of the city's most recognized bakery names.