The Perogy Dynasty of Hunky Bill

  By Vancouver Sun                                  September 2, 2011

• There are several things you should know about Bill Konyk. The first is that he is 80, fit as the proverbial fiddle and credits his health and his rather cheeky attitude to perogies. Which he eats every day.
•  The second is that his wife Kay, who is from Chicago and is 74 and who gave him three spitting image sons – Billy, 51, Clayton, 50, and Mark, 44 – had no clue what a perogy was when, in 1958, she wed the man who would turn out to be B.C.’s perogy king.
• The third is that when Konyk, while working in Vancouver radio nearly half a century ago, convinced the skeptical PNE brass to let him open a perogy kiosk in the Food Building in 1967, that first combo dinner sold for 95 cents. This week, at his booth on the PNE midway, the same plate of food costs $12.
• Oh, and he’s called Hunky. Hunky Bill.
• The Konyks – wife, sons and six grandchildren – all but bleed perogies, every last one of them having been inculcated in all manner of Ukrainian fare and, for as long as they could stand on their feet for 12 hours a day, having worked the fryers and fountains and counter under Hunky Bill’s tent during the annual fair.
• And if you ask him to tell the story of his perogy legacy, and you will because you just know it’s going to be interesting, be prepared to have your ear bent.
• The short version is that like many immigrant Ukrainians, Konyk’s parents settled in Winnipeg, where Bill was born and raised, before heading as a young adult to Chicago for a job as a radio sports reporter. He met Kay, they returned to Winnipeg and married and, two sons in tow, moved to Vancouver in 1966 when Bill landed a job at CJOR.
• In the late 1960s, after hosting a few house parties for ex-Winnipeggers, he realized there was a market for Ukrainian food and began importing perogies and sauerkraut and sausages and smoked goldeneye from Manitoba and selling them to local Ukrainians and other adventurous eaters, Ukrainian food in 1970 being a somewhat exotic cuisine in the then-sleepy culinary town that was Vancouver.
• “Next thing I know, I’m making some serious coin,” he says.
• One day, sometime after Kay had perfected the art of perogy making, Konyk was enjoying a drink in the Ritz Hotel on Georgia when a friend bet him $10 that he couldn’t get the PNE to let him sell his perogies to fairgoers.
•  He took that bet, but the PNE put up a fight and told him there was a waiting list for spots. Konyk was persistent, and the fair finally relented when he said: “Do you know what a perogy is? This is going to be the hottest food in town.”
• He was in, it was and this year is Hunky Bill’s 45th at the fair.
• To say that perogies are a Konyk family affair is to fail to grasp just what that means.
• In 1980, for instance, Kay introduced her son Clay to his soon-to-be wife Elly, who was working at the Hunky Bill’s booth while he was stationed at the family’s other fairground venture, Barnacle Bill’s, which sold fish and chips (it’s now incorporated into the Hunky Bill’s booth). Their two adult daughters, Rachel and Katy, are now regulars in the perogy tent.
• Clayton says dad has always been a tough taskmaster and “started breaking us in when we were 8 or 9.” He remembers working full-time at the fair when he was 13.
• In the off-season, Clayton works at his business, Cottage Creek Homes, along with Mark, who was born the year Hunky Bill’s opened at the fair. Bill Jr. is a horse trainer and remembers being a kid frying sausage in the back of the booth while his dad “yelled and screamed.” Today, his son Bill (technically Bill Jr. Jr.) is in the booth working alongside his cousins, including Mark’s sons John, Ryan and Adam. The grandchildren are pondering various careers, from welding to teaching math, but expect they’ll always be on perogy duty for, like, ever.
• So, perogies as a family legacy. Who knew?
• Well, Bill Konyk did. And he’s not shy about saying so. In fact, he is fond of such bon mots as: “If the Colonel knew about chicken what Hunky Bill knows about perogies, he’d be a general today.”
• And then there’s the Hunky Bill mantra, which everyone in the family can recite in their sleep: “A perogy is a crescent-shaped type of dumpling filled with a seasoned blend of potatoes and cheese topped with a Ukrainian ice cream called sour cream.
• “Working hard, says Konyk, is a lesson he learned early on from his father, as was the expectation that your kids, and their kids, would work hard, too.
• Oh, and dad told him that whenever he had a little extra money, he should buy real estate. He took all that advice, and once even bought a pub, The Dover Arms, that he has since sold.
• After this year’s fair, Bill Sr. will be sitting down with the family to talk about the Konyk legacy and how he and Kay might start enjoying some of the perks of their labour.
• But he’s not done yet. He’s still selling his invention, The Perogie Maker, is thinking of getting into the perogy delivery business and, later this month, will feed perogies to 600 at a Salvation Army dinner.
• So, just how good have perogies been to the Konyks?
• In 1967, Hunky Bill did $5,800 worth of business during the fair. Last year, he handed $80,000 in “rent” over to the PNE, which represents an undisclosed contractual percentage that food vendors pay the fair based on sales.
• And all you can think is, holy perogies, that’s a lot of dough.

sfralic@vancouversun.com

I hope you enjoyed this little diversion I’ve offered. After reading all about Bill, I will be ordering a perogie maker very soon. I can’t wait and neither can my family! The link again to check out more about the item is http://hunkybill.biz/shop/catalog/browse?shop_param=.