Escanaba — The U.P. isn’t so far away. On one side of the water there are the trolls, and on the other are the Yoopers, those hardy (read as “insane”) individuals who live way up there.
On one side are Hershey’s bars, those generic chocolate bars that all good Americans seem to eat around the campfire while swatting mosquitoes every summer. On the other side are Yooper Bars, the candy bar you’ve never heard of.
What is a Yooper Bar? It’s the chocolate bar of the U.P. It’s the opposite of generic. The opposite of national. It exists here and nowhere else. You will never buy a Yooper Bar in a 7-Eleven just outside of Lansing. You won’t find them on the shelf of a Wesco in Ludington. You won’t even come across one in the deep North, just south of the bridge.
But you will find them as soon as you cross that five-mile stretch of cold water. Just past the toll, on US-2, they are waiting at Zodiac Party Store. They are on display in the hotel lobby in Manistique. In the pasty shop down the road, right next to the cash register. They are all over the U.P., and nowhere else.
The Yooper Bar is emblematic of a certain aspect of U.P. culture and devotion. Yoopers love being Yoopers, and they love stuff that reminds them of who they are. Living up there, past the bridge, is a key part of their identity. There are Yooper bumper stickers, Yooper shot glasses, Yooper jigsaw puzzles, and so of course there are Yooper candy bars.
Yooper Bars aren’t a marketing ploy. They aren’t generic chocolate bars manufactured by some obscure, no-name factory that churns out uninspired candy bars for all 50 states.
On every Yooper Bar, there is a detailed outline of the Upper Peninsula. Not only the jagged coast and the clean border to the west, but every county line is etched into that sweet chocolate mold. Details matter. Far superior to Hershey’s or any other poor man’s chocolate bar, Yooper Bars come in three different iterations. Milk Chocolate, Dark Chocolate, and even a 72% Cocoa Dark Chocolate version. Created, sold, and eaten all in the U.P., Yooper Bars are authentically local.
Yooper Bars are made by Sayklly’s way out in Escanaba. A local landmark, Sayklly’s was founded more than a century ago, in 1906, by a young Lebanese immigrant, Joseph Sayklly. When Sayklly first opened up shop on Ludington Street, he sold groceries, homemade ice cream, and candy. Over the years his freshly made candies drew more hungry mouths than the groceries, and eventually, in 1960, the shop stopped selling groceries altogether.
Originally, all the candy was baked right on Ludington Street, but as Sayklly’s grew, the need for more room, and bigger ovens, became clear. While Sayklly’s candy has been made in different locations over the years, it’s always been made right here in Escanaba. Today, the factory is down by the water, half-a-mile away from the original store.
The store on Ludington Street is filled with the sweet smell of candy. Bite-size chocolates of every variety sit behind a glass counter. There are chocolate crosses for Easter, bars wrapped for birthdays, and assorted boxes of chocolates and other sweets on the tightly packed shelves. Yooper Bars are, of course, front and center. On the wall behind the glass counter are old family photos in black and white.
Carrying boxes of candy down the front steps, two women wearing hair nets loaded up a car parked out in front of the Sayklly’s factory on a foggy May morning. Just inside the factory, past an old white door, there is a long bank of windows. Behind the thin glass, a white kitchen where Yooper Bars and other northern delights are made. Down the hall and to the right is the office. Quiet, with the faint smell of chocolate in the air, bags of fudge pasties sit on the desk—$5 each.
The woman behind the front desk told me that the factory employs about 25 local workers. While Sayklly’s has always sold a bunch of different candies, the Yooper Bars are their most popular creation. Coming in second are their fudge pasties. A dessert play on that Yooper cult classic, the pasty. It makes complete sense.
Often, people bond with one another through difficulty. The struggle becomes something beloved. A negative becomes a positive. In a small sense, this is part of the Yooper story. It’s tough living in the U.P. Yoopers say they love it, but it’s not an easy life, especially during winter, which is about half the year up here.
This is why they call us outsiders trolls. This is why they love all the stuff that reminds them of where they live and who they are. This is why they have Yooper Bars and we don’t.
O.W. Root is a writer based in Northern Michigan, with a focus on nature, food, style, and culture. Follow him on X at @NecktieSalvage.
