The love of that Upper Peninsula fixture dish never died and Carollo had a dream to eventually bring his mother Beverly Mae’s pasty recipe to the whole country.

Mother’s recipe is a guarded secret, but Carollo said the key to a good pasty is its crust — and he calls The Pasty Oven’s crust, also handed down from mom, the ideal crust, not too dry, not too soggy.

The filling is the perfect ratio of meat to potatoes and seasoned as they should be, he said.

Carollo once toured a pasty factory in England, where plant managers told him if you do not receive complaints the pasties have too much pepper they are no good. He does occasionally get feedback that Pasty Oven pastys — Carollo actually trademarked pastys as the plural to pasty — are too peppery.

AFTER STARTING AS a restaurant in Quinnesec in 1997, using his mother’s recipe, Gene Carollo established The Pasty Oven factory in the Florence In-Comm Industrial Park in 2000. (Jim Paul/Daily News photo)

Carollo opened The Pasty Oven restaurant in Quinnesec in 1997 and got off to a fast start, but he still had bigger goals. Carollo said he thought he would be able to distribute his pastys from the restaurant to grocery stores, but he found out otherwise.

“I thought that we could do it out of our Quinnesec shop, we could make 500 pastys a day,” Carollo said. “But to go across state lines, you have to get the USDA involved and to do that, you have all kinds of restrictions involved.”

To further his push to introduce his pastys to far-away markets, Carollo decided to take the next step.

“At first we had a big boom (at the restaurant), and it did slow down a little, but it was doing well enough that we could get together with the bank and build the factory,” he said.

For the factory location, Carollo chose the In-Comm Industrial Park in Florence, Wis. He said county and town officials were great to work with and made the deal happen.

THE PASTY OVEN is a family affair. Shown here are the Carollo brothers — from left, Jim, owner Gene and Dean — in the cold storage area, where thousands of their "pastys" await shipment across the Midwest. (Jim Paul/Daily News photo)

Work on The Pasty Oven factory began in the summer of 1998 and took a year-and-a-half to complete. Then the factory sat idle for six months while waiting for USDA approval before production began in the summer of 2000.

The factory has since gone through three additions to increase production.

It now produces 12,000 to 15,000 of its pastys a week. Sizes range from the 3-ounce mini-pasty to the most popular 1-pound pasty.

Carollo said there was a learning curve in going from small shop to the factory and all the equipment, but they soon figured out how to run the equipment to consistently make the pastys like they were coming out in small batches.

Although the traditional pasty, with or without rutabagas, will always be the heart and soul of the business, The Pasty Oven does make several specialty pastys that have done well.

The most popular is the breakfast pasty, with sausage or ham, potato, egg and three cheeses. Other well-received varieties include chicken, buffalo chicken, pizza and veggie. Carollo said he collaborates with companies that they distribute to for ideas for specialty pasties.

Available only during the month of March is the Bierock, a pasty with cabbage instead of potatoes.

The Pasty Oven currently employs 18 to 22 people, including production, office staff, drivers and the crew at the Quinnesec shop. Carollo also has the help of family — brothers Jim and Dean, along with sisters Kayanne Timbrook and Karen Secinaro.

Pasty Oven products can currently be found in grocery stores such as Walmart, Meijer and many others across Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and parts of Illinois. In addition, pastys have been shipped directly from the factory to just about every state in the nation.

Carollo derives much joy in bringing the pasty to places and people who never had them and seeing them become fans.

“We did a demo in Oconto, Wis., 70 miles away and nobody knew what a pasty was, which is kind of weird,” he said “Once the people tried them, they said, ‘My kids won’t eat this,’ Meanwhile, the kids ate them. It is a good product, comfort food. Everybody enjoys them once they know.”

Carolla still wants his pastys in grocery stores across the country and is constantly working to do just that.

The Pasty Oven’s restaurant is at W7279 U.S. 2 in Quinnesec and is open 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday.