Jean Kays Pasties & Subs

Best pasties I’ve had. Definitely try the spicy ketchup. The steak pasties with the diced rutabaga in them are great! Open until 8 pm on Sundays. Gravy is good too!

This place is absolutely wonderful. The staff is friendly, the restaurant is clean, and the food is fresh and delicious. A steak pasty with rutabaga and gravy is exceptional. Their gyros are very tasty as well. Don’t forget to try the potato salad! Highly recommended.

Jean Kay’s is a true original. Marquette would not be Marquette without it. I was fortunate to meet the owner and get a lot of the place’s back story. I can’t say that I’m an expert on pasties, (mine tasted great) but I’ll leave those critiques to the hard-​core pastie aficionados. What I do know is that I had a fantastic, memorable time, in a place with heart and soul, and a story. A great place where tourists and locals cross paths and both are welcomed.

Just a note — only three small tables, so prepare to eat standing up. Good news is the Pasties are worth eating in any position.

The trip to Marquette is complete when you get a «Pastie with» (rutabaga) from Jean Kays. Eat on their deck or take it to go to a picnic table at the Isle. The BEST Pastie in the UP. We have tried others but Jean Kays has more meat (real steak), more rutabaga and an overall better taste than Lowry’s or any other. Wish they would open a branch in Scottsdale. I’d be there every day !!

I’ve been coming to Marquette since I was a kid, and pasties are always a mandatory indulgence! Jean Kays is the real deal. Gotta get the rutabaga included for an authentic experience. The place is tiny (3 tables) but only a few blocks from the beach for a great picnic. We will be back.

The only reason this places doesn’t get all 5 stars is because they don’t have a chicken option.
Pastry was thin, crisp and brown. HOT outta the oven. Great veggie flavor, meat was tender. The staff was VERY helpful and friendly! And the homemade spicy tomato sauce is awesome!

Always a mandatory stop when I came home for vacations. Now that I’m back, I try to get here at least every couple weeks.

First pasty and I’m hooked! Jean Kay’s service and pasties were both AS GOOD AS IT GETS! We were tasting (with kids) as part of our U.P. experience. They were kind enough to cut our pasties into 4, so that we could share. Of course, my 23– year old nephew who brought us there had a whole one to his self! It’s big, filling… so if you are only a little hungry a half would be fine. For me, one-​fourth was not enough, so I probably at ¾ and was happy. But craving more! So I bought a dozen frozen ones to share the experience with folks back home. U.P. Souvenir SCORE!

Omg if you are in marquette and dont try their pasties then there is something wrong with you! Try them out! They are so reasonably priced and they are cooked to perfection!!!

Food is very good, you get a lot for the price. We plan to eat there again while in town.

Something happened between all these glowing reviews and my visit. Steak pasty was huge and looked great (thin brown crust) but v disappointing. Mangled, not so tender beef in big hunks, tiny diced potatoes and hardly any rutabaga. Due to size, proportion of filling to crust was wrong. Friendly service and heard the gyro was good but won’t be racing back.

Great local sub and pasty shop with a friendly staff. Pastys were fresh and full of steak, rutabaga, onion and potato. Pulled pork barbecue sandwich also tasty. Homemade hot sauce goes great on pastys and better than ketchup!

My wife recently order a fresh supply of Pasties for me from Jean Kay’s (shipped to South Texas) and they are fantastic!
When one of the boxes got «delayed» by the shipping company while in transit, Jean Kay’s tracked down where it was, determined when it would arrive, and called us with updates and even to check to make sure we were happy once it was delivered. What fantastic service! My Yooper Blood runs on Pasties, so having Jean Kay’s ship to me wherever I am in the world means I get a tiny taste of home with every shipment.

This may be the best Pasty in the Upper Peninsula. I went here for the first time after reading the reviews here. The hype is real, this is by far the greatest pasty that I have ever had. The key is to get the rutabaga which is a cross between carrots and turnips and then pour gravy on top of the whole thing. Delicious.

Wonderful food and kind service; loved the description of pasties as «empanadas that aren’t fried» provided for a couple of Hispanic guests. I recommend buying a bottle of their own branded jalapeño pastie sauce.

Decided to do a pasty taste test while in the area. Started with Muldoon’s given their #1 status. We bought the traditional beef without gravy at both Muldoon’s and Jean Kay’s.
Jean Kay’s beat Muldoon’s hands down!!! Why? Read on…
#1 Jean Kay’s was beefier and tastier. Way more steak inside. To be fair, both places stuffed the pasty full, but there was definitely more meat in JK’s.
#2 Better crust. Both have a tasty crust, but JK’s is thinner and had a tasty browned bottom. Yum!
#3 More moist. JK’s didn’t «need» a sauce or gravy. The interior was flavorful and juicy enough on its own. That said, try the spicy catsup on it. That’s tasty too!
#4 You can differentiate the potato from rutabaga. It hasn’t been cooked together so long that the flavor becomes one note.
#5 Friendlier service! The people in JK’s were awesome! Real experience…“Would you like a cup of water (that I didn’t remember to ask for)? I can bring that to you. Can we cut that in half for you if you’re sharing? Careful, it’s super hot. If you like spicy, try the catsup… it has jalepeno. How was everything?”
#6 Less expensive. $ 4.50 vs $ 5.75 and both were a comparable size.
No contest! Thank you Jean Kay’s! Nicely done!!!

The traditional pasty was delicious. I was surprised to find the prices were very reasonable. Definitely worth the hype.

Fantastic Pasties. Best I have had in the U.P. No frills old school Deli Counter atmosphere. Great service. Pricing very reasonable. Crust was perfect and buttery.

When I moved to Marquette I didn’t even know what a pasty was, and now I’m confident in saying that Jean Kays have the best in town! Their pasties are always fresh and moist, and they use real steak instead of ground beef. You can get it with or without rutabaga, but I prefer without. Eating it with ketchup is delicious but they also have a house pasty sauce that is pretty darn good as well. This is a great meal to take with you to one of the breweries in town and enjoy with a cold craft beer.
They have other choices other than the pasties but I stick to what I know. They have a variety of sodas, juices and chips too. The owner is a really nice man who is always excited to talk about his business and product. And rightly so; he has quite the establishment goin here. Marquette is lucky to have such a quality pasty joint!