Akron, Ohio, Krispy Kreme Doughnut Shop Offers Recipe for Success

You get no bagels and no cream cheese at the Krispy Kreme on Maple Street. "Just doughnuts," said co-owner Chuck Asente. "We've avoided fads -- no soups, no hot dogs." The company recently attracted national attention when it went public and started adding stores in the dot-com world of the Pacific Northwest. But there is much more than hot doughnuts at the oldest operating Krispy Kreme in America. On a muggy morning this week, groups of old pals came together to sip coffee and spin about their world over glazed doughnuts. "We sit there and talk politics, world events, sports," said Richard T. Montgomery, 63, a retired Summit County Human Services caseworker. Montgomery said he has been coming to Krispy Kreme "religiously" most mornings for about 10 years and about 20 years on and off. He and his friend Walter Childers talked about picking strawberries and fishing. The location at 354 S. Maple St. was opened in 1939 -- one of the first outside Winston-Salem, N.C., where the company started in 1937. Company officials say the Maple Street store is the oldest continuously operated Krispy Kreme in the country. There are now 150 locations in 27 states -- including 12 in Ohio -- with more planned. A scene in the 1998 movie Primary Colors has actor John Travolta playing a Bill Clinton-like politician, eating Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Corporate marketing director Steve Bumgarner said there are no Krispy Kreme doughnut stores in Arkansas, and he didn't know whether Clinton actually is a fan. "You have to ask Bill Clinton," Bumgarner said. The White House did not return a call yesterday seeking that information. When Clinton visited the Cleveland area a few years ago, Asente sent Krispy Kreme doughnuts from the Middleburg Heights store to the rally where the president was appearing. Over the winter, the Maple Street store spent $500,000 to remodel and add a drive-through window and also bought new, automated equipment that doubled the doughnut-making capacity, Asente said. The drive-through window accounts for 25 percent of sales. When store owners were talking about remodeling, there was some discussion about moving to another neighborhood, but that idea never went anywhere, Asente said. "We take our stand right here," he said. The store was opened by Ed Richardson in 1939 and purchased in 1969 by semi-pro baseball manager Robert Simmons Sr., former Ellet High principal. Simmons and his son, Robert "Bobby" Simmons Jr., and Asente, who is Bobby Simmons' brother-in-law, now own six Krispy Kremes in the area. As doughnuts were cranked out this week, disciplining children was a topic for discussion among some friends gathered around a circular table at the front of the store. "We took prayer out of the schools -- and it had nothing to do with beliefs, it was a form of discipline," said Ed Hewitt, a 75-year-old retired construction worker and Red Cross volunteer. As an example, he shared a story about hiring a young man to mow his lawn. The man pushed Hewitt's mower over a rock and ruined the mower. "He tore it up," said Hewitt. "It was like a joke to him." From there, the discussion turned to rising gas prices. "They are gouging us," said Marvin Barner Sr., 61, an Army retiree. Regular Otto Weems talked about the need to fix up Wooster Field on Wooster Avenue. The discussion inside often touches hot issues, too. The subject of race came up one morning as Traian Boyer, 26, a roofer from Akron, said he has learned about the African-American experience from the older men he drinks coffee with each morning. Boyer is white and is married to an African-American woman, Shajuana Boyer. They have three children. "I learn some history and I can find out what it was like 50 years ago," said Boyer. "I don't want to be ignorant. My kids are half black." Otto Weems, a 69-year-old Goodyear retiree and an African-American, said he respected what Boyer was doing. "In order to understand where you are going, you have to understand where you've been," he said. Meanwhile, the doughnuts keep coming. With the ability to make 270 doughnuts an hour, the store can make enough to sell to more than 50 convenience stores. Creme sticks are made at the store on Front Street in Cuyahoga Falls. The keystone of the Maple Street store is the new glazed doughnut machine. Every six to seven seconds, six circles of dough are squeezed out. "It's like making little tires," said manager Rick Schrack, 45. Although the doughnut-making is automated, the jelly, fillings and icing are still added by hand, one at a time. And the retooled shop retains a major touch of the old. The original "hot do-nuts" neon sign still beckons hungry motorists. Asente, 50, has learned after nearly three decades at the store that many people have doughnut stories about Maple Street. He said store owners are thinking about sponsoring an essay contest to collect customers' tales. Ruth Stokes, a 25-year employee, knows what her regular customers will order when they walk in the door. "They are like family," she said. For Montgomery, it isn't just the doughnuts that keeps him coming back to Krispy Kreme. "Good conversations, good doughnuts, good coffee and you see friends," he said. ----- To see more of the Akron Beacon Journal, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.ohio.com/bj