I first heard of the Kolache Factory through a coupon we received in the mail, likely from ValPak. I lost the coupon but my wife and I still decided to check them out anyway. For me breakfast is often a disappointing experience as I don’t eat eggs. It is therefore hard for me to find quick breakfast options that still have protein. Our visit came after an eight mile run in the morning, so I needed to find something to fill me up.

Enter the kolache, “a type of pastry that holds a dollop of fruit rimmed by a puffy pillow of supple dough. Originating as a semi-sweet wedding dessert from Central Europe, they have become popular in parts of the United States. Often in the United States, kolaches are used for breakfast, stuffed with ham and cheese.” I remembered a picture on the coupon showing bread stuffed with things other than eggs and knew that we needed to give it a try. The Kolache Factory was founded in 1982 in Houston, TX and is expanding nationwide.

Inside Kolache Factory

When entering the Kolache Factory you immediately recognize the layout of the restaurant as similar to a donut shop, with trays filled of the offerings back behind the registers. They have a few of the standard kolaches, similar to what I think you could find in central Europe. However most of the options utilize the same dough, but instead of placing various toppings on top the ingredients are stuffed inside the near baseball sized ball of dough. They also offer a couple of longer varieties with a few different kinds of sausage stuffed inside the pastry.

Sausage Gravy and Pepperoni Mushroom

I decided to try the most popular item from the menu, the filled dough balls. I went with one breakfast selection (sausage and gravy) and one more lunch offering (pepperoni and mushroom). After making my choices the employee taking my order offered to heat them up, to which I obliged. Unfortunately they are just microwaved for a minute and then served. It would be nice if they were heated quickly in an oven, which would make the outside a little more crisp instead of chewy. Regardless the dough was a bit sweet and tasty. The sausage and gravy was just as good as I imagined that it would be, with the dough it tasted almost just like biscuits and gravy. The pepperoni and mushroom also had some pizza sauce on it and was even referred to by the staff as a pizza kolache. It too was very good, spicy, and filling.

Sausage Egg Cheese and Chicken Enchilada

My wife also ordered one breakfast and one lunch style kolache. I didn’t sample her sausage egg and cheese kolache but she seemed to enjoy it. The chicken enchilada was again quite good. There was definitely some spiciness in it from the enchilada sauce. We also split a cinnamon roll for desert. Since they didn’t have any ready, it came fresh from the kitchen a few minutes after we started eating our meal. It was warm and topped with melted icing. It is hard to mess up a cinnamon roll, but this one was definitely toward the top of my personal list. To reiterate what I said before, I think the next time I will get a large variety pack of kolaches to go and then warm them up myself in the oven to see if that makes them even better. I hope that next time is sometime soon.