Mary Hardaway’s fledgling business, Pierogies Etc., is a classic case of finding a need and filling it.

A Youngstown, Ohio native, Hardaway moved to Alpharetta five years ago. Like many transplants, she missed some of the foods she had grown up with.

In her case, it was pierogies.

Although the savory little dumplings are of Polish origin, they’re in the repertoire of many eastern European cooks. “We’re Hungarian, and my mother made them constantly, every Friday, for Lent and the holidays,” Hardaway said.

The fillings vary, but staple ingredients are usually cheese, meats, and veggies such as onions, potatoes and cabbage.

Hardaway routinely made pierogies for herself and her family, but two years ago, she realized that in the metro area, the only way to get them freshly made was to order online and have them shipped. She decided to try selling some of her homemade dumplings at a local festival to probe their marketability.

Last year’s Arts on the Creek was her first target, but as a new vendor, she had to be approved.

“I took some samples to the Johns Creek Chamber of Commerce. After tasting them, they said ‘you’re in,’ and they were practically fighting over the last one,” Hardaway said with a laugh.

At the festival, people standing in line at the barbecue booth next to hers would casually glance over to her booth, Hardaway said.

“A lot of them jumped out of that line and came over to me, saying stuff like ‘oh my gosh, I haven’t seen pierogies since I moved down here.’”

Apparently, north Fulton has a nucleus of relocated Northern and Midwest residents who, like Hardaway, are nostalgic about the familiar foods they left behind.

“They told me they’d been searching for pierogies for years. It was a thrill to listen to them,” Hardaway said.

And Southerners who had no idea what a pierogi was were enthusiastic converts as soon as they tasted them, she said.

The 5,000 dumplings she’d brought to the two-day event were gone in the first day. In the next few months, she had orders for “hundreds of dozens” of the dumplings.

Employed full time by an Alpharetta company that makes digital X-ray machines for dentists, as soon as she gets off work at 5 p.m., Hardaway heads to a shared commercial kitchen, where she makes pierogies until around 2:30 a.m.

She can make five dozen nightly and gets orders for roughly 40 dozen a week. “I get about four hours sleep, but that’s all I need,” she said.

She’ll be at Arts on the Creek again this weekend and at Taste of Johns Creek Sept. 25.

Although pierogies are her mainstay, Hardaway also scratch-bakes and sells treats such as Russian wedding cookies, mini pecan tarts, cupcakes, peanut butter blossom cookies, pizelles and buckeyes, a peanut butter and chocolate cookie.

Her website is http://www.wix.com/alphacook/pierogies-etc. Contact her at pierogiesetc@gmail.com or (678) 920-3787.