The history of Runza with Sherry Loos Pawelko and company President Donald Everett Jr.
Channel: Daily Nebraskan
Date: 08/12/2017

When German-Russian immigrants began moving to the United States between 1880 and 1920, they decided to settle in Nebraska due to the state’s grassy terrain being similar to what they knew at home. They brought with them their traditional recipes, one of them being a stuffed sandwich filled with meat, onions and cabbage in a yeasted bun. This sandwich was known by a handful of names, including bierocks or kraut kuchen. 

Sarah “Sally” Everett was born on a farm in Sutton, Nebraska. Her parents migrated from Russia to the United States, and Sally learned to make her family’s bierock recipe from her mother. She took that recipe and opened a Runza, a carhop stand in 1949 near Pioneers Park, serving her family’s bierocks, now known as Runzas, and hamburgers. Now with 83 locations throughout the country, Runza Restaurant is still in the family.

Watch to learn further how the bierock made it’s way to the United States with executive director of the American historical society of Germans from Russia Sherry Loos Pawelko and company President Donald Everett Jr.