This weekend, Kansas City area residents have their first of only two chances this year to snag what some consider the metro’s best pretzel.
Heather Browne and her colleagues will roll thousands of pretzels over the next four days for eager fans and first-time customers. They’ve been in business for nearly 15 years but you won’t find their salty delicacies at any bakery or restaurant. Browne belongs to a troupe of dance moms, and the pretzels are a booster club fundraiser.
MelRoe’s School of Dance Booster Club will be manning a booth at Independence’s SantaCaliGon Days Festival, which celebrates the city’s history as the starting point for the Santa Fe, California and Oregon trails. The booth has gained fame on the local festival circuit for its pillowy, chewy pretzels.
The purple pretzel booth is just one of many fundraisers the booster club puts together to support their children’s expensive sport — it costs more than $6,000 a year to put one kid through competitive dance — but it’s by far their most popular.
The pretzels are only available seven days each year, during SantaCaliGon Days and the Liberty Fall Festival. The dance moms have been rolling them by hand since 2010 when the newly formed booster club bought the recipe and some equipment from a retail pretzel company that went out of business. The rest is history.
“We haven't tweaked much of anything for that recipe since that time because it's so delicious. There's really nothing to change,” said Browne, who is president of the booster club. “They’re rolled with love — and you can't go wrong with salt and butter.”
The booster club is composed of mostly working parents who volunteer on their time off; Browne is a nurse. It takes months to prepare for seven glorious days the pretzels are available.
The group spends months sourcing bulk flour and nacho cheese. In the days leading up to SantaCaliGon, volunteers pre-measure all the flour and yeast needed to quickly make the thousands of pretzels they’ll sell. Hours before the festival starts, the booster club is busy setting up its iconic purple stand and arranging the heavy equipment needed to sling dough to hungry customers.
Browne will likely work 20 hours this weekend, alongside groups of other booster club members. The volunteers often have to endure extreme heat made worse by ovens inside the booth.
When it’s not hot, it’s raining — Browne swears it pours every year. Though the stand is equipped with tarps to cover the windows, the workers will often be rolling pretzels in standing water so they can keep serving guests.
The intensity of setting up the booths and keeping up with the hoards of hungry patrons reminds Browne of what her daughter goes through at dance competitions.
“They're very comparable: high energy, high stress,” Browne said. “You’re on your toes the entire time, whether you're trying to roll or time manage or watch the oven so you don't burn the pretzels or look at the line to see if we need to get a second roller. That's very relatable to dance.”
During the festival, the pretzel booth transforms into a sort of family reunion. Former dancers and their families come by to visit between bites. One of the most exciting parts for Browne is seeing MelRoe’s alum with their children who may one day be future dancers at the studio.
Then there are the regulars who are less graceful, but still passionate about pretzels. Browne said some customers drive hours just to get their hands on the scarce commodity.
“It's fun to talk to people as they come up and place their order and say that we’re the only reason they were coming,” Browne said. “We've had people come back multiple times in one day to get a second or third or fourth pretzel, or even over the weekend because they liked it and want to order an extra one to take home.”
For Browne, the pretzel booth is more than an annual fundraiser for her child’s chosen sport — it’s a way to stay connected to Independence and the dance community.
When MelRoe’s moved its studio from Independence to Liberty, slinging pretzels at SantaCaliGon was one of the only ways to keep its presence in the city. It’s a way to recruit dancers and reconnect with familiar faces.
“To be honest, when all this comes to an end, when my daughter graduates, I don't know what I would do with myself,” Browne said. “It is a thrill to work the pretzel booth. It sounds odd but it's fun. You have camaraderie. You're laughing. You're making people happy by giving them a warm, homemade pretzel.”
