Hog Island Country Store on Michigan’s UP is perfect stop for hot pasties, conversation

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Hog Island Country Store and Cottages. 10/6/10. By Julianne Crane

A little more than 30 years ago Jimmy bicycled through Michigan’s Upper Peninsula on his cross-country tour from Oregon to Maine. Ever since then, he’s had an obsession about pasties.

Cornish pasty. Source Wikipedia(For the unknowing, according to Wikipedia: ‘a traditional Cornish pasty is filled with beef, sliced potato, turnip or rutabaga and onion; then baked.  It differs from a pie as it is made by placing the filling on a flat pastry shape, usually a circle, and folding it to wrap the filling, crimping the edge to form a seal.’)

“I remember always buying two hot pasties,” he recalls with his eyes glazing over, “one to eat while I bicycled and the other to tuck away in my handlebar bag to eat later.”

Tom and Sandy Jacobs, owners of Hog Island General Store. 10/6/10. By Julianne Crane

Therefore, when we spotted the roadside sign declaring “pasties,” Jimmy pressed on the brakes and slid into Hog Island Country Store and Cottages just (35 miles west of the Mackinac Bridge on U.S. 2 .)

Inside this great little store we found owners Sandy and Tom Jacobs. Seven years ago, Sandy, a former intensive care nurse and Tom, a retired Delphi Corp. worker, left the Lower Peninsula, bought the place and re-invented themselves. While they sometimes feel they are working longer hours now, they still love taking care of the store and six neat clapboard cottages that have hosted families since the 1940’s.

The store and cottages will be open another couple of weeks for the season; then will reopen in the spring. The Jacobs hope to take a month-long road trip this winter to Utah’s national parks.

Photos: Tom and Sandy Jacobs, owners of Hog Island Country Store and Cottages. 10/6/10. (Julianne Crane) Cornish pasty. Source Wikipedia

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