Marion County Pepperoni Roll Tour

The Pepperoni Roll Tour may not be West Virginia’s best-kept secret, but the culinary road trip through Marion County is certainly among its tastiest. The trek celebrates the pepperoni roll, an Italy-meets-Appalachia specialty that originated in the Fairmont area and even became the official state food in 2021.  

These savory and satisfying little loaves of white bread are stuffed with pepperoni and made by rolling pieces of the cured meat in a small slab of yeast dough. The roll is baked until it forms a soft and fluffy loaf and the meat’s combination of oil, salt and spices has seeped into the bread. Because they’re portable and good to eat at room temperature, the thousands of Italian immigrants who worked in Marion County’s coal mines during the 1920s made homemade pepperoni rolls their standard lunch fare.  

In 1927, a miner named Giuseppi Argiro took pepperoni rolls to a new level by opening the Country Club Bakery in Fairmont and producing them commercially. Other bakers followed his lead, and over the decades, the comfort food became such a pervasive part of north-central West Virginia’s culture that Marion County calls itself The Pepperoni Roll Capital of the World. To honor that heritage, the local visitor bureau launched a Pepperoni Roll Tour that allows travelers to explore the area bite by bite.

The tour’s numerous destinations include the Country Club Bakery, which is not only still in its original location but also continues Argiro’s legacy by serving fresh-from-the oven pepperoni rolls featuring thin sticks of meat. Other stops offer their own variations. Mama Di Roma’s, for example, adds Romano and mozzarella cheese, while Colasessano’s pepperoni roll with everything contains house-made meat sauce, cheese and Italian-style peppers. For more information, visit marioncvb.com.