New Store Openings, Coming Soon, And An Old One I’ll Never Forget

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Recent comments by Jim Morgan, CEO, Krispy Kreme Corporate, and Ken May, President, Krispy Kreme Corporate, indicate that new store openings for Krispy Kreme in the United States may double the size of existing stores over the next five years. This is founded, strategically, on a smaller store built around innovative new smaller equipment to produce a full line of our doughnut products including, of course, our signature Original Yeast Raised Hot Doughnut.

While thinking about new store openings in the future I began to reminisce about new store openings in the past. From 1994 through 2004 which was my time as head of and sometimes not head of, but always in the marketing department, there were a lot of new store openings and one of my responsibilities was to get them to open BIG. With the growing “celebrity” of the Krispy Kreme brand through product placement and national PR, opening “Big” was not a stretch, at least with the first new store in a new market…after that, don’t bet the farm on the next opening in that same market.

One of the most satisfying things I’ve done with Krispy Kreme is opening new stores. Standing at the 180 curve and handing out Hot Glazed Doughnuts right off the line to customers, the majority of which had never even smelled a Hot Original Glazed before, was an experience that I could never get enough of. Just seeing the almost bewilderment at that first bite and the smiles and usually laughter following those first nibbles is forever glazed into my brain. A truly amazing experience for them and for me seeing it happen hundreds, even thousands of times at all the openings I attended around the country.

Does Everyone Smile and Laugh
At A New Store Opening?

The most memorable Krispy Kreme new store opening for Krispy Mike happened about 11 years ago in the august city of very healthy people, Austin, Texas (Austin was just recognized as the healthiest city in America – I guess by a stacked panel of very healthy judges). The store happened to be the first-ever store opened by Glazing Saddles in Texas and I can tell you now that I was a little more nervous about this one as I had ever been about all those other stores we helped open for other franchisees. When it’s your dollars and future on the line the perspective changes somewhat from “Isn’t this nice and fun,” to “If this doesn’t work, we don’t work!” But, the customers arrived and arrived and arrived and we experienced one of the biggest openings in Krispy Kreme’s history. A little over a year or so later we nearly doubled the size of the Austin opening when we opened our first store in San Antonio, which is one of our strongest stores in Glazing Saddles land today.

Lemme get back to grand opening smiles. In Austin, during the first awakening moments of the opening we had a several blocks long line at the drive-thru and a happy, energetic line out the door at retail stretching somewhere way down the street and out of sight. I was handing out a hot doughnut to each person as they came through the line and often it was a couple of people who had had Krispy Kreme before bringing with them a friend or two who hadn’t. Then we’d all watch when the newbie’s took their first bites and exploded into this laughing/rapture-like emotion, some even jumping up and down and sometimes sideways over the taste experience. It was over-the-tippy-top party time and there wasn’t an adult beverage anywhere in sight! It was all fueled by what was Hot!

WAIT?! There’s A Guy In Line Frowning!

Feeling the joy of what was happening with the doughnuts and the joy of sales cranking up big time against those foreboding bank loans, I suddenly saw what seemed like an out of context apparition. About ten people back in the happy line was an older gentlemen who looked like he was standing in an unemployment line on the last day of his unemployment pay. His hair was a little rumpled and his shirt was a wool red plaid and his head was down and his hands were stuffed in his pockets as he shuffled forward. I had never seen this type of expression of unhappiness in a customer coming into a Krispy Kreme grand opening celebration. In fact I’ve never seen it since. As he approached me his expression didn’t change (I have a way of doing that to people so it didn’t bother me too much) and when I held out a hot Krispy Kreme and said, “Have you ever had a Hot Krispy Kreme doughnut before?” he looked me sternly in the eye and said, “I grew up on Krispy Kremes, I’m from Baton Rouge and was transferred here 30 years ago and haven’t had one since.” And I said, “Try this one, it’s going to taste the same as the last one you had in Baton Rouge (I was cheating a bit because I knew Krispy Kreme had a lab in the mix plant back in Winston Salem that made sure that the taste and texture of our Hot Original Glazed doughnut never varies, no matter what).” He answered by saying, “I doubt it’ll even be close”, and he took the doughnut, bit into it, paused and slowly nodded his head slightly up and down and when he looked me in the eye again, he was crying! Real tears streaming down his cheeks, unashamed emotion. He never said another word as he continued to nod his head in some odd positive affirmation, and he walked away from me and I never saw him again. But I knew one thing. That Krispy Kreme doughnut taste took that old man to a place he hadn’t been to in a long, long time. It was a memory about his parents, his kids, an early girlfriend, his grandmother…I didn’t know what nearly forgotten feeling had brought tears to his eyes but I knew one thing for sure. A Krispy Kreme doughnut had made this man smile with his tears, just another special way this very special product can fill part of your everyday life with true joy.

Wow, speaking of joy, I enjoyed writing this. First time I’ve ever written it down. I didn’t even produce my own tears as I usually do when tell the story to someone face-to-face. I suppose writing is less emotional somehow, although I really did feel emotion while describing the part about the old man. If we ever bump into each another, I’ll tell you the old man story straight out in my own words and then we can have a good cry, a Hot Krispy Kreme, and wash it all down with a cold bottle of milk. How’s that sound?

Here’s smilin’ at ya from a better trail of tears…

Krispy Mike

What Do You Give A Krispy Kreme Doughnut For Valentine’s Day?

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Krispy Kreme Original Glazed Doughnuts

Krispy Kreme Original Glazed Doughnuts

Sweeties and lovers and husbands and wives and old acquaintances and new ones and kids and teens and just about every sentimental person in Texas and all over America celebrate Valentine’s by giving everything from Roses to Krispy Kreme heart-shaped doughnuts to the one they care about on this ever-romantic day. Our stores in the Glazing Saddles (our franchise name in Texas) world from Laredo to El Paso, through Austin, San Marcos and San Antonio love this time of year and our Valentine’s doughnuts reflect it. Giving Krispy Kreme doughnuts to someone you care about is nothing new, but it gains a bit of love-fired momentum during early February.

So, a simple question arises: If you give Krispy Kreme doughnuts to someone you care about and you also care about Krispy Kreme doughnuts, what then do you give a Krispy Kreme Doughnut for Valentine’s? Krispy Mike has the answer. You give your favorite Krispy Kreme doughnut a day in a world class spa, that’s what. I’ve actually done just that and witnessed and paid well for the results. Stay with me on this because you’re not being set up.

While serving my time as head of marketing at corporate Krispy Kreme Doughnuts during the years between 1994 and 2004, there were good times and bad, fun times and tears, entrepreneurial highs stirred in with some headline making lows but there was always fun in the air as it is today with a great corporate team in place making positive decisions about the future of this very old company. Sound like I’m sucking up? I guess I am in a way, trying to be a rah-rah franchisee, but time will tell, as it always has with this venerable company, as to who will rise and who will fall…not unlike any other great company in America. How does this digression relate to doughnuts and spas and Valentine’s? It relates because of something that happened during my tenure at corporate that bears repeating at this heart-throbbing time of year.

A Short Music Video Goes A Long Way

When I worked at corporate Krispy Kreme I was able to enjoy the experiences of my previous business life where a part of my work was shooting commercials, documentaries, and various other film projects for some of the giants of industry and a few little guys as well. Krispy Kreme always wanted to tell it’s story in video and when I arrived things like video tape got to rolling. We shot a lot during my ten years but the most fun and challenging projects were producing complete music videos of everything that happened during an annual company wide convention. The videos were shot at the location of the convention; they included EVERY person attending and EVERY event, and were produced using 4-5 videographers running all over the place and bringing the raw footage back to me where I was holed up for 4 days in a makeshift editing room with a fellow named Tripp who manned the edit console and pushed buttons as we raced through 12-15 hours of tape and ended with a 9-12 minute completed video which was then shown at the banquet on the final night of the convention. It usually took me a week to get over it – no sleep permitted during the whole edit, except for catnaps on a couch – but the results were always stunning because of the bonding among the attendees at witnessing themselves in meetings and golfing, in serious discussions and laughter, walking down 5th Avenue in New York or watching the sun set over some blue-green crystal clear ocean in the late afternoon at someplace special – these meetings brought the company together like nothing I’ve seen in other corporate settings and the videos always capped the ending and sealed the deal.

Going To The Boulders Is Not Like Becoming A Cowboy

It was at one of these meetings that I got to send an original, glazed Krispy Kreme doughnut to a spa. The meeting was at a wonderful place called The Boulders in Carefree, Arizona. The Boulders featured incredible accommodations, uncompromised meeting facilities, and grounds so beautiful you’d get a lump in your throat just staring at the boulders and Saguaro cactuses and the low-lying vegetation that somehow survives the 115 degree desert heat. When shooting the videos during the conventions we were always seeking to involve some outstanding characteristic offered up by the resort. In The Boulders case, golf was nothing compared with the world-class spa on site in the main building. The guest rooms at The Boulders are all small adobe buildings scattered about the property and looking like something out of an old western movie. So when I say ‘main building’ I’m speaking of the place where all the meetings, shopping and spa activities take place. Someone, and I think it unfortunately was me, had the fantasy idea that “wouldn’t it be cool if we sent a Krispy Kreme doughnut though a complete spa treatment, video the whole thing, and include it in the music video to be shown on the last night of the convention!” There you go. A meeting with the spa officials brought surprise and laughter and they thought it was the greatest idea they’d heard since the spa opened. So, we did it. Through steam and showers and rub-downs and light exercise and hot towels and manicures and pedicures went our Original Yeast Raised Glazed doughnut looking better with each passing treatment. It was actually hilarious behind the scenes and I’ll confess that it took quite a few “stand-in” doughnuts to finish the whole program even though the finished segment looked like there was only one (showbiz). When done our happy doughnut was as relaxed as a cat while sitting on some kind of red velvet piece of cloth in the last scene. Fantastic! We said our goodbyes to the spa gang and went on about our work with a deadline looming, as always.

It Can Be Expensive When You Give A Valentine’s Present To A Doughnut

The finished video went on to be a hit and the scenes of our doughnut in the spa warranted enough shouts of “Encore!” at the end that we had to show the video twice. What a nice reward for everyone who helped make it happen. But wait, there’s a bit more to this story and I never heard the end of it until I left corporate to become a franchisee out here in Texas. About a month after the meeting at The Boulders I was sitting in my office back at corporate. I had just replayed the video from the meeting and was reveling a tad at how good it really turned out. My mood changed without notice when in walked a high up numbers type executive who was reviewing the charges for our meeting from The Boulders. She was half smiling and half frowning in that same condescending way an IRS agent has when he’s about to the slap the cuffs on you. “I have a charge here that I can’t figure out and since it had ref: kk mkt dept on it I thought you might be able to help me out – heh-heh,” without a smile now. Continuing, with increasing animation she quivered out the next sentence, “It’s for a full spa treatment of a Krispy Kreme ‘product’ and the charge is $1,500 plus $500 for special Red Velvet set up. WHAT IS THIS!?”
she nearly screamed and it was obvious that she hadn’t seen the video cause she wasn’t at the meeting. I was more visibly shaken than she was in that I had jokingly asked the spa people at the time what they’d charge me for sending the doughnut through and they laughed and said, “You gotta be kidding, this will be for fun!” That was a relief to me as these videos were done on a relative shoestring budget and any charge would have ended the idea right there. So in the next few minutes I made a clumsy attempt to calm Miss Numbers’ approaching rage by showing her the video with the doughnut spa scene that I replayed several times for clarity. This only made it worse. I soon found out that accountants, other than my partner, Krispy Mark, our CFO at Glazing Saddles, have extremely low tolerance for sending a doughnut out for a pedicure, as she audibly huffed, then turning with a jerk, down the hallway she bound, dropping some papers as she went. Bad sport.

Epilogue

I know I stretched it a bit by tying Valentine’s Day in with the story because the spa incident happened a month or two after the February celebration. But I didn’t think you’d mind because it proffered you a piece of good advice for Valentine’s: Give what you can afford and what will make your sweetie happy, even if it’s a simple kiss.

Moral: It’s far better to give from the heart than to receive an invoice from The Boulders.

Happy Valentine’s. See you at the spa!

Krispy Mike

PS: Today’s more frugal and practical corporate Krispy Kreme leadership holds annual meetings at places close to their Winston-Salem headquarters with hardly a spa in sight, unless you call that pulsing Delta showerhead in your guestroom a spa. Have to dream, though, the Caribbean looks pretty nice right now…km

MY very first Valentine Card. THE very first Valentine Card.

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Krispy Kreme Valentine Doughnut Arrangement

The Perfect Arrangement

MY FIRST VALENTINE CARD

With St. Valentine’s Day pulsing its way rapidly into everyone’s heart strings, I sit in an undisclosed location in one of our Krispy Kreme stores in Texas watching many delighted customers rushing in empty-handed and rushing out with clear plastic bags filled with dozens of our “Valentine Hearts” doughnuts, obviously headed to make somebody out there pretty happy. Our Sprinkled Heart doughnut is a heart shaped delicacy with white icing and red, white and pink sprinkles never to be confused with our Heart shaped Kreme filled doughnut topped with chocolate icing and red drizzle, and then there’s our ‘excellence-in-simplicity’ ring doughnut with chocolate icing and Valentine’s Day sprinkles. As I watch the scurrying employees and customers having a fine time I recalled the first Valentine’s card I ever received. Think about it, can you remember your first Valentine card. I’ve heard so many “When I had my first Krispy Kreme” stories now over the decades that I know, like me, nearly everyone remembers their first Krispy Kreme. But your first Valentine’s card!? I don’t know who may remember that one.

Your first Valentine’s card … think back to your childhood for the answer, if that’s where it’s hiding for you in memory as it is for me. My first Valentine’s card was delivered to me in about the second grade when our tiny class was writing and exchanging heart-felt cards under the supple guidance of Ms. Gardner, our teacher. We were all given a selection of one-sided cards usually designed with a big, die-cut heart as the main star then featuring cupids and bunnies and flowers and stuff like that scattered about the heart. The back of the cards were blank allowing us space to write love messages to each other in class…”if you really like someone a lot” as Ms. Gardner would instruct, her hair up in a tall bun on top of her head and a heart pin on her lapel. She continued…”and of course at Valentine’s Day we especially like each other a lot, now don’t we…” “Yes, Ms. Gardner, we sure do,” we replied.

Well, everyone was writing their secret messages with thick-leaded pencils (I go back pretty far, as you’ve figured by now) when suddenly a girl in a blue and white plaid dress got up from her desk just as Ms. Gardner ordered in her mannerly way, “…time to share your cards now, children…” The girl had blond hair with two pigtails tied with rubber bands, I believe, and came right over to my desk as I continued to struggle with penmanship. She quickly laid a Valentine’s card on my desk, face up, then flew back to her desk without so much as a word. I think I was embarrassed although the thick fuzz of time covers much of what emotion I might have felt at that moment but what was written on the card is something I’ve never forgotten. It stated, in neat blockish print letters: Miek, you are cuit. Laura. How could you ever forget a message like that? I kept that card into my late teens where it finally vanished as my room was cleaned out when I was swept away to higher learning at Chowan College in Murfreesboro, NC. Well it wasn’t that much “higher” a learning but it was certainly higher for me. Also, I never remember talking to ‘Laura’ or even seeing her again. Alas.

THE VERY FIRST VALENTINE CARD

Share this next part, if you would be so kind, with the fine General Managers of our stores in Laredo, Austin (2), San Marcos, San Antonio (2) and El Paso (2), because we want them better informed about the rich history of St. Valentine’s Day and why we send cards, give presents and roses and doughnuts, and gifts of all kinds around February 14th, Valentine’s Day. They won’t listen to me when I try to inform them on the history of this important celebration but they will listen to you because you’re a customer and that goes a long way in making them listen. Your donation of sharing this story will build precision wisdom in their minds and better prepare them when a customer asks, “Where did Valentine’s Day start and when did the first Valentine’s Day card get sent.” People ask me this every day so I know our GM’s get hit with it. Clarification: Almost every day.

If you think Valentine’s Day is a big heart-shaped retail deal, you’re right. In the United States alone around fourteen BILLION dollars is spent celebrating the “Be My Valentine” mantra each year and shows no signs of slowing down…Love-Be-In-Da-Air for sure! But if you think Valentine’s Day was invented in this country you’d be right and wrong. The special day was popularized in the US over the past century but in no way did it start here (OK, I know, popularized means commercialized, but hey, this is America). This “Day” thing goes way, way back. Try February 14, 269 AD in Rome to pinpoint the first “Valentine’s Day”! Back in those times things were just a tad bit different than they are today what with all the pagan love feasts and that big blow-out week-long celebration called Lupercalia held around the 15th of February which would make an out-of-control frat party look like Cinderella getting out of her converted pumpkin carriage. But, you know, things have to start somewhere and Rome gets the honor of being first on the block for this one.

Moving the story on, it seems that old Emperor Claudius II who was Rome’s big boss at the time was trying to build up his army so he could go out and conquer down on other country’s heads but it seemed that very few would join up in Claud’s military because a lot of Roman men were married and wanted to stay that way so they laid low and didn’t join. At least this is what Cluad deduced, being the sharp-minded Emperor he was. What’d he do to solve the problem? Simple, he cancelled all marriages and engagements in Rome until such time that he had enough troops to defeat the world. I guess he didn’t think about how long that might take. But Emperors don’t have to be smart to be Emperors as we’ve seen down through history right up to this day. His edict didn’t go over too well with all those young couples in love so along comes a very nice Priest in Rome who was generous and loving and loved by all who knew him. His name was Saint Valentine and he, like almost everyone in Rome, wasn’t too fond of “Claudius the Cruel” as he was generally known. So, in defiance of the no-marry edict, St. Valentine began secretly pronouncing wedding vows to couples in secret hiding places to avoid detection. Unfortunately, as they say, ‘Detection Happens’ and the kind old priest got caught in the act while marrying a couple, who escaped, but he did not. He was dragged off to a horrible prison, sentenced to death, but, oddly, was allowed many visitors to his dungeon before he was executed. One of these young visitors was the daughter of a prison guard who let her into St. Valentine’s cell where she and the priest would talk for hours. The young woman gave him comfort through this dark time before he met his darker time. That day of martyrdom came on February 14, 269 AD. But first he wrote a note, which was delivered to the guard’s daughter thanking her for her belief in what he did and the loyal friendship they shared. And the way he signed the note was the very beginning of what we celebrate today. He signed it: “Love from your Valentine”.

I didn’t make this up, no matter what you say! It’s too good a story not to be real.

I must go now; I haven’t yet picked up a thing for my sweetie. Wait! I’m in Krispy Kreme! I’ve got an idea…

Come on by and say Happy Valentine’s to me and everybody else.

Love,
Kupid Krispy Mike

Valentine’s Hearts, Inspired Chocolates, Iceland Trip – Don’t Eat Hakarl

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Hakarl

Hello from Krispy Mike deep in the heart of Texas where I’m hoping that our General Managers and all our diligent employees within our eight Krispy Kreme stores are reading this blog because I really never know who, if any, might be reading it so at the very least I need our folks to be. Of course whether they read it or not I’m certain of one thing – our customers in Laredo, Austin, San Marcos, San Antonio, and El Paso are finally getting their hands on our Valentine’s designed doughnuts in special packaging that will make their someone special happy when they receive these heart-covered boxes as gifts during this very cheerful time of the year. Of course we still have all our dark chocolate inspired, limited edition doughnuts along with our ever present Hot Original Yeast-Raised Glazed Doughnuts being served up along with the Valentine’s specialties so everyone should be happy.

But that’s not all I wanted to talk about because early this past Saturday morning I started my weekend off while sitting in my front room reading the Wall Street Journal (I throw out the Business section because my partner, CFO Krispy Mark always explains it to me anyway) and in the REVIEW section there was a well done story about disgusting food entitled, “You Eat That?” written smoother than I could by Rachel Herz. It was so engaging that I couldn’t put it down even though the subject matter made me want to. Being in the business of providing customers truly great tasting treats that are Krispy Kreme doughnuts, I couldn’t resist the world-wide comparisons about foods which different cultures enjoy while those same cultures find food of other cultures disgusting. Does that make sense? Ms. Herz says, “Disgust is one of the six basic emotions-along with joy, surprise, anger, sadness and fear-but it is the only one that has to be learned, which suggests something about its complexity.” In her excerpted piece in the WSJ she included a culture-embraced “food” that I’m familiar with called hakarl which got me reflecting on my encounter with that delicacy in Iceland several years ago while I was employed at corporate Krispy Kreme.

I’ll keep you hanging for a little bit on hakarl so I can reveal why the marketing guy from corporate Krispy Kreme was in Iceland in the first place. Along with randomly heading marketing I also shot many internal documentaries for KK about our people and culture and when we found out that every Thursday in our store in Virginia Beach, VA, 350 cases of Original Glazed Doughnuts were cooked up, then packed in dry ice at a nearby processing plant and shipped on a C130 cargo plane over to the NATO base in Keflavik, Iceland. There, on the following morning, military families would purchase the familiar green polka-dot Krispy Kreme boxes from their on-base commissary (“grocery store” is what that means) and take them home to the kids. Yummy story. We set about the pre-production process to shoot a documentary on the adventure of our high-flying doughnuts. We started the video in the Virginia Beach store and then went with the doughnuts on the long flight over to Iceland. There is so much to tell you about the many facets of this story as it was a densely interesting excursion, but for this blog I’ll overlook the minute details so I can soon get into the hakarl part. Maybe I’ll tell you more about the video trip in a later blog when I run out of things to write. Or send you the DVD. It turned out pretty good and ran on for 45 minutes.

Following just behind our Pied Piper Doughnuts we chased the dozens through their entire trip, rolling miles of video along the way to finally end in the homes of three different military families as they nearly inhaled the Krispy Kremes. It was clearly a happy, emotional experience along with the obvious gustatory pleasures, as you could clearly witness that Krispy Kreme connected them with the taste of home in United States as few things could. I have to say I was very proud of our doughnuts as we shot that segment of the video. No tears in the eyes, but close.

If you’re in dire need of something interesting to do right now since you don’t have to spend time mowing the yard till spring, look into the history of Iceland. I know Iceland was in the news a couple of years ago as its whole banking economy was collapsing, but the country is fascinating beyond your imagination. With all the ancient Sagas still alive and wholly believed in by the locals there in their tiny national population combined with rugged weather, long sunless winters, their people also speaking English, their impossible to pronounce language, and so much fish to eat that you feel as though you’re always in the middle of a Deadliest Catch episode, Iceland is a place you will never forget. For just one example, if nothing else it’s worth the trip if you’re a curious tourist wanting to soak your naked body in the very hot, medium blue-green colored geothermal waters bubbling from deep-in-the-earth molten-ness, forming a steamy lake called the Blue Lagoon.

There’s much natural nearly treeless beauty in “The Land of Fire and Ice” as they call it,but some of the food there, except for the Krispy Kremes on the NATO base, can get pretty scary to an American. The Vikings are Iceland’s famous ghosts of the past and I found out why they became ghosts. It was because of hakarl I am certain. Hakarl is extremely rotted shark that’s been buried under rocks and sand for many moons so as to bring out the full, delicate flavor. The ancient Vikings, before they sailed away to do their Viking stuff in their smallish ships on the cold sea for months at a time, would first catch Greenland sharks, (caught locally in the frigid waters) chop off their heads, clean out their innards then bury the remaining carcass in the sand for nearly half a year. When they returned from their adventures they would dig up the rotted meat, slice it into rotten strips and hang them out to dry for about six more months.  I can’t fully understand why I’m writing this after having started this blog with our delicious Krispy Kreme heart-shaped doughnuts! I guess I haven’t written enough blogs to hold my aberrant thoughts to one coherent stream for very long.

Continuing the story, the unpleasant chill-bump ending, for me certainly, is that when all the rotting and drying is done, you guessed it, they eat the stuff! Gleefully! Like someone taking their first bite of a Hot Original Krispy Kreme Glazed doughnut! I saw it through the fingers of my hands partially covering my eyes. So understand this now in 2012, the Vikings are all ghosts, but lots of living people in Iceland still eat hakarl, although in many restaurants it has become a right-of-passage ritual event featuring lots of very strange beer mixed with vodka served kinda cold on tap.  On the other hand, there are still many Icelandic folk who enjoy hakarl because they like the way it tastes. When I saw hakarl being gingerly ingested, the rapid chewing was occasionally followed by some nasty side effects. I didn’t eat it but I smelled it, and it is a smell you’ll never purge from your smell memory – and as Justin Wilson used to say on his cooking show, “I Gar-On-T ” you’ll never forget that odor.

Throughout the world there are indigenous foods that can only be swallowed by the indigenous people who grew up where that particular food is served. As for acquired tastes you will find several in Ms. Herz’ excerpt that you would be encouraged not to acquire. Japanese Natto is one that comes to mind from her article. In a much less severe way the regional tastes in America can be as innocent as barbeque in Texas being mostly beef, as in brisket, while barbeque in North Carolina where I’m from is usually smoked pork shoulder chopped or sliced, Lexington style, or eastern style. But that still doesn’t mean you’d be disgusted by one or the other because they’re both good in their own way. Suffice it to say, though, there have been near fist fights over which is better, Lexington or eastern. Regional food might not be disgusting but it can be divisive.

It’s time to wrap this blog up by simply reflecting on the internationally accepted unique taste of Krispy Kreme doughnuts and how I can’t imagine that even a hardy, horn-hatted Viking of yore wouldn’t be tempted to pull his ship into a Krispy Kreme store “sail-thru” when the “Hot Doughnuts Now” sign is on. I probably shouldn’t go there because it would break my heart to see dozens of our doughnuts buried in the sand on a beach. I suppose though, when it comes to taste, if you’re having fun at the beach, it doesn’t much matter if a little sand gets in your Krispy Kreme box. And with that in mind, maybe the Vikings were on to something after all.

I’ll see you at one of our stores in Texas soon. But in the immediate mean time, hurry on over to the Krispy Kreme store nearest you while the Valentine’s doughnuts are cookin’ up so pretty it can’t help but warm your heart.

Don’t Eat Hakarl!

Krispy Mike

1,000 Mile, Two Day Krispy Kreme Texas Adventure

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Somewhere North of Laredo...

Ever wonder what us Glazing Saddles Krispy Kreme franchisees do when we can’t stand being in our Austin office for another second? We visit our stores in Austin, San Marcos, San Antonio, and Laredo with a stop down there in McAllen to look around and envision (for the umpteenth time) a Krispy Kreme store there. May happen. Now that certainly has no big deal sound to it, except this time we made the trip across a thousand miles of bumpy, sandy, 18-wheeler loaded highways and back roads in two days in my partner Krispy Randy’s Ford diesel truck with me in the potentially dangerous front passenger seat and my other partner, Krispy Mark, hiding out in the back seat of the crew cab. I won’t tell you why I think the front passenger seat in his King Ranch is dangerous because Krispy Randy is a sensitive guy and I wouldn’t want to bang up his feelings in any way. But so you’ll know, if you ever take a road trip with him, if you’re in that front passenger seat it’s in your better interest to never look out the front windshield, just kind of watch the scenery fly past out the right window and that way your life will never have to flash before your eyes. Footnote: We also have two stores way out west of here in El Paso that we couldn’t add a visit to during those two days unless we owned an airplane which our CFO, Krispy Mark, wouldn’t even sort of consider in his wildest dreams. Not saying Krispy Mark’s tight, just saying when it comes to our money he keeps the ship very tight. VERY…in fact I’m having to write this on the reverse side of last week’s blog to save paper as my paper allocation is slim to none. Hey, wudda ya gonna do, ya know?!

I guess that’s enough picking on my partners for now cause I don’t want them to start up their own blogs and stick it to me. Back to the road trip. But first, not to leave El Paso out of this, we did have a long chat with them by phone and they know we’ll be breathing down their necks real soon anyway.

If you’ve ever made that run from Austin to McAllen and back to Austin through Laredo then you know that the highways can be seriously packed with trucks and cars tailgating each other every chance they get. And they constantly create a lot of chances. But there can be long, long, and lonely stretches which makes you pray to soon arrive at the next little town just to see a stoplight change. What do Glazing Saddles franchisees do during those long, droning windshield-time hours of empty scenery? We eat tons of our Hot Original Glazed Doughnuts that are, of course, cold but still better than any competitor’s doughnuts no matter what their temperature is (I know, I know, I’m not supposed to brag about our doughnuts since that’s our customer’s job, but this is, after all, Krispy Mike’s blog and my opinion counts to me, at least). Also during these long empty road segments we discovered something to make the time go away quicker than a dozen triple chocolate Krispy Kreme doughnuts: We counted hawks! Glazing Saddles’ franchisees are smart in ways of making time fly by. Counting hawks is good clean fun and for our trip the Red Tails were out in force. Few were flying. Most were sitting in tree tops near the highway looking for a nice hot rodent dinner and spotting them was easy and counting them was like being a kid again. Krispy Randy was especially pumped over the sport because it provided him with yet another excuse to keep his eyes off the road. Over a stretch of 90 miles we counted at least forty to fifty of these beautiful hunters but never got an exact count since some we counted were flying and it was getting dark and hard to pick them out for sure. Krispy Mark didn’t take part in our child-like hawk counting game choosing instead to watch ESPN on his iPhone. He’s obviously more mature than Krispy Randy and me. At least I think that’s what he was watching.

At the end of the first day with a very humid, warm darkness settling in we located our hotel in McAllen and walked into a very crowded lobby area that was going full swing with drinks and tacos. Happy hour! The hotel is in a major national chain, but you know how Krispy Mark is with our dineros, so I assure you it wasn’t the Ritz Carlton but it was a notch or two above a Motel 6. We moved through the crowd to the front desk and Krispy Randy asked for our three rooms (at least we don’t have to share). The young man behind the gleaming formica counter who checked us in said that he had our rooms but one of them had a little problem. So little a problem in fact that he said we could have it for free. There were no more rooms in the hotel as this big boatload of people showed up two hours earlier and took every last one. Krispy Randy, in his always generous way, said he would take the afflicted room and his two partners could have the other non-afflicted rooms. Then he asked what the “little problem” was with his room. The clerk said that you could safely lock yourself inside the room but if you left the room you couldn’t get back in without hotel security unlocking the door for you as the lock on the outside was broken and they couldn’t seem to find the maintenance hombre to fix it. I’ve never heard of this in all my years of travel. So off we go, me to my room on floor two, Krispy Mark to his room on floor one and Krispy Randy walking to his room on floor three with the security guy at his side tightly grasping a ‘special’ key to unlock the door. Is this supposed to be funny? Well I think it is since I had a workable lock and a nice, clean functional room with a view of a palm tree in the parking lot.

It gets better. Once Krispy Randy was safely locked in his room things didn’t look quite right. The stuffed chairs and couch were totally worn out, I’m talking “Dumpster Wore Out” here. The ottoman was so shot that they had it hidden in the closet which had only one plastic hanger. Also, shabbily, some curtains were missing. But there was a bright spot Krispy Randy discovered while surveying what his kind gesture at check-in had turned into for him. He observed with glazed amazement that the commode had a little hole at the top side of the tank that he thought was a movement censor installation that flushes the toilet automatically when one stands up after necessary obligations. You know, if you travel, like the ones in restrooms in airports and those sometimes creepy rest stops along America’s highways. How nice. That kinda-sorta made him feel a little less disgusted about the condition of his room cause Krispy Randy is a talented mechanical/electrical/plumbing contractor type who loves innovation and an automatic john flusher in a medium priced hotel room privy seemed pretty up there to him. Until he looked closer. Sadly, that little high-tech hole in the tank was where the flusher handle used to be! It was long gone and the only way to flush the thing was to take the tank lid off and pull up the flapper. Who wants to do that? Krispy Randy was in the middle of a serious adventure. His adventure continued when we later ordered dinner at a little stucco-sided Mexican-themed steak house with a live, pounding cover band. Krispy Randy won’t eat dinner without a blue-cheese slathered wedge salad on the side. When he ordered, they said they didn’t offer a wedge salad at this restaurant! I’m totally convinced this is the only sit-down restaurant in America that doesn’t have a wedge salad offering on the menu. We still ate there although Krispy Randy didn’t talk much.

There’s quite a bit more to the story but my paper supply is running out so I’ll end this by saying that successfully operating a pretty decent-sized Krispy Kreme franchise in Texas isn’t always about tasty doughnuts, hot coffee and happy customers. No, there are times when our business can turn into a flush-less, wedge-less, boring, thousand mile two-day road trip. I know. We had one last week.

On the plus side however, stuff like this does build franchisee character and lasting doughnut bonding.

Krispy Mike

All In The Family

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Family Night Fun in Laredo, TX

Family Night Fun at Krispy Kreme Laredo

People say that Krispy Kreme is all about family. I’ve heard that my whole life and can clearly recall sitting at a table in a Krispy Kreme store in North Carolina as a little feller with my mom, dad, and little sister with an open box of Krispy Kreme hot original glazed doughnuts being emptied with great enthusiasm. My mom kept asking me to slow down, but I couldn’t, that glaze flaking off my lips as I went for another and another. It was a treat and it was my family partaking in it and I will never forget that image etched in my memory along with and many other warm memories tied to Krispy Kreme over the ensuing years.

So, those doughnut philosopher’s who say Krispy Kreme is all about family are right. And we at Glazing Saddles here in Texas are more than a living testimony to that in all eight of our Krispy Kreme stores throughout the state. It got started for us when we acquired the store in El Paso a few years ago. The store was not up to where it needed to be and required a lot of effort to begin to bring it around. Today it is our biggest store by sales but when we got it “as is”, it needed some polish; except in one area. In that store every Wednesday night they held a little get together for children and their parents and it was called “Family Night”. It lasted about 2 hours and consisted of a variety of doughnut related arts and crafts and sprinkles dipping and the whole thing was run by one or two very enthusiastic Krispy Kreme employees who transformed those two hours into a kid’s party better than any other party you’ve ever seen. It was not uncommon to have over 50 kids with their parents participating in these messy, fun, happy, constructive, memorable Family Nights. The nights were often tied to seasonal celebrations like Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day, 4th of July, Cinco de Mayo, Halloween, and several more. Other times, you might find the Krispy Kreme Family Night conductor showing kids how to design doughnuts on paper with finger paints, or how to stick a cartoon tattoo of a bunny rabbit on your hand.

It didn’t take long for us to see what we had to do. So, the decision was made and to this day our stores in Laredo, Austin (2), San Marcos, San Antonio (2), El Paso (2) have Family Night every Wednesday night and it has now become a permanent part of who we are at Krispy Kreme in Texas. All our Family Nights continue to grow in popularity and attendance has become something to see. But, to me, one thing has caught my eye maybe more than anything else. When the Family Night show comes to an end each Wednesday the event leader writes an email review of how many attended, what they did, and stuff like that and sends that report to Jennifer in our home office in Austin who in turn writes them back and cheers them on. The tone and enthusiasm of these retail employee Family Night leaders is what knocked me over. Certainly the emails are no formal corporate memos filled with corporate things. Who needs that anyway? These emails are genuine little works of art written 100% from the heart in styles and punctuation as original as our hot Original Yeast Raised Doughnuts. As you read them you actually see the smiles on the faces of the Krispy Kreme employees writing them.

As I’ve said in other blogs about Glazing Saddles, we are in a fun business built around long-term community relationships with families, friends, businesses, churches and with any other positive organizations that make a community find greatness in itself. We’re a solid, participating part of every city we’re in and when you read the enthused Family Night emails it begins to give you a true, unvarnished glimpse into what makes us Krispy Kreme.

So, show me the emails, you say! So, I will. Following are unedited Family Night emails reporting on what happened on those fine little Wednesday night gatherings in our stores. This is truly behind-the-scenes reporting but we all thought it would be interesting for you to hear from the kinds of dedicated people we have in our employ and witness firsthand just another one of the reasons our Krispy Kreme stores are all about family – and friends, too, of course. I know you’ll enjoy.

Family Night Reports
From Stassney in Austin:
Tonight’s Family Night was the biggest I’ve ever had, we had an astounding 54 kids and their parents come in. All the school’s are out for Christmas break, and the kids were so excited to make their very own doughnut. They loved the craft and we colored picture of “frosty the doughnut man”, most of the kids kept looking at the snowman doughnut to get their picture just right. We also played a huge game of Santa’s bingo that lasted almost an hour. It was another great family night full of smiles, sprinkles and of course Santa. I can’t wait to hear what everyone got for Christmas next week, Merry Christmas everyone.
Sincerely,
Katy and Team Stassney

From Laredo:
HELLOO!!! Well tonight we had sooooo much fun. We had 15 adults and 21 kids joining us, Kids had fun with the hanging snowman activity. Tonight was extra special to me because everyone got together and did a surprise party since today is my b-day. I was shocked when I walked in and saw everyone jump up and say “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” they brought cake, goodies and lots of presents from all my kids. It feels really good to be appreciated and loved by all my families. Over all it was a good night for all of us here since it was a night full of surprises!
Merry Christmas to all from TEAM LAREDO!!
Thanks,
Jannette

From Gateway in El Paso:
December 21, 2011
FAMILY NIGHT BY: MARY VASQUEZ
Children Attended: 40
Parents Attended: 28
ACTIVITY REPORT: El Paso #1 store
Arts & Crafts: Cut paste and assembled Snowman Frame
Doughnut Decorating: The Children decorated an original glaze with chocolate and sprinkles
Hand Coloring: The children all lined up with excitement to wait their turn to have a Christmas tree painted on their hand/arm.
Coloring Book Exercise: The children participated in a coloring contest as always with lots of fun and laughs from all.
Balloons: The children received balloons as always. The children brought me a gift of fruit, candy and nuts for Christmas. I was very surprised and thankful for their thoughtfulness. The parents were very proud of the children also. I received hugs and kisses from the children and a very Merry Christmas Cheer! “See you next week they said”

From Research in Austin:
YAY!!! Today we had a blast!!  WE HAD 26 KIDS COME IN TODAY AND 20 PARENTS COME WITH THEM . We HAD SUCH A GREAT TIME. WE DECORATED GINGERBREAD MEN AND GINGERBREAD GIRL NOTEPADS. KIDS WERE ALL OVER THE PLACE I WAS ASTONISHED AT HOW ALL THE KIDS CAME IN AT ONCE. I HOPE NEXT WEEK WE HAVE AS MUCH KIDS OR MORE AS TODAY! YAY!! IT WENT BETTER THAN LAST WEEK!! BYE!  I WANNA HEAR FROM EVERYONE AS WELL!!!  Yeah, my lobby ended up messy but it was all worth it seeing all those kids come in with so much energy. I feel great!!!  Have a great night! HOPE EVERYONE HAD A GREAT NIGHT AS WELL.  ITZEL SALVADOR

From DeZavala in San Antonio:
Today was a busy day here at family night I had a total of 12 families and 15 kids. Most of them stayed the whole time also which always good. The kids had a lot of fun since we made those colorful gecko door knobs. I did my best to interact with the families and make sure everyone was having a good time. I even took it upon myself to play a game of hot potato with a Krispy Kreme balloon and a group of kids. I had a good time and the kids seemed to have a even better one. We had yet another great family night here at Dezavala.
Sincerely,
Dack Gutierrez KK 1059

From Stassney in Austin:
Tonight we had 16 little sprinkle slingers come in and make the super cool and very useful polar bear thermometers. The craft was very easy to put together and easy to clean up(which is always good with our youngest sprinkle slinger). Tonight we had a family come in and make the crafts for us to take home which I thought was super SWEET. I know I will be hanging mine up outside of my front door so I know what to wear! (I ride my bike to work early in the morning, brrrr). Well until next week; have a great night team Glazing Saddles.
David F. 1058

From Sonterra in San Antonio:
Good evening!!!!
Hope everyone had a fun night today!!! Here at Sonterra it was awesome, we had a lot of fun today. We had a total of 33 children, 2 young teenagers, and 19 parents (with a few of them participating with us in making their doughnut). The craft for today was the “Just Chillin’ Polar Bear Thermometer.” Children colored, played with their balloons, did their crafts, and just had a good time while here. Everything was just great and we are always happy more people are finding about our Family Night days… Hope everyone has a great night!!!!
Sarai V. =)

From Mesa in El Paso:
Today we had a really good family night I had a lot of kids today I had around 36 kids and their parents. The kids made their Christmas sprinkle doughnut and also made the Lollipop craft which by the way it was super cute and parents liked it. Kids colored Christmas pictures and took them home. Looking forward for next week’s Family Night

Alejandra Lom
KK MESA!

You’ll have to agree that you’ll never see a corporate email start out with “HELLOO!!!” or “YAY!!!” or calling kids “sprinkle slingers.” The emails from our Family Night leaders are the real deal and fit perfectly into what we are in our Glazing Saddles Krispy Kreme family in Texas. You can also see the response back to our Family Night leaders from the kids when they bring in gifts and goodies for their Krispy Kreme Family Night “teacher.” The fun flows both ways on these often unforgettable nights.

If you’re a parent reading this and you live near one of our stores (check exact locations and contact info on our website) then this Wednesday evening when you might want to have some family-style fun with a doughnut or two, put the children in the car, come on over and join in the party.

But if you’re a child reading this, I know you can’t drive yet, so I’ll simply say how glad I am to have one more reader cause I need all I can get…

See ya Wednesday…YAY!!!

Krispy Mike

You’ll Never Meet A Stranger In A Krispy Kreme Store

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When I first started working for Krispy Kreme corporate in 1994 part of my assimilation into the company was self-imposed. I was fascinated at once with the rich history and myriad stories going back to the company’s fragile birthing in 1937 where $200, a one year old Pontiac (that used to be a car brand in this country until GM blundered it away) with no back seat to make way for boxed wholesale doughnut deliveries, and a name and secret doughnut recipe – a future icon, as some call it, rolled out of a little brick storefront in what is now called Old Salem, North Carolina.

“Self-imposed assimilation” means I dove into the company and attempted to learn as much about it, maybe everything about it, that I could learn as fast as I could learn it. Well, after the first year of spending time in as many stores in the southeast (there were no other stores except in the southeast at that time) it was quickly realized by this new doughnut guy that I had only scratched the surface of this million faceted company and to this day as I sit here clicking this out to you I’m still scratching around on the surface although a few ‘deep dives’ into the history has made me know what the Krispy Kreme brand is all about. When I was enjoying a conversation recently in one of our 8 fine Krispy Kreme stores in Texas with a young couple with two children who were at the window looking into the doughnut production area seeing a flowing line of our hot original yeast-raised glazed doughnuts march by, I was reminded of a couple of things I learned in the first year when I started at corporate. The couple I was talking to in our North Austin store were laughing, happy, and enjoying our place with their children watching doughnuts being made and laughing and pointing at what we call “our doughnut theater”. What I was reminded of was the first Saturday morning at 6AM, of my first week on the job at Krispy Kreme corporate, when I stood in our Winston-Salem, NC store at the 180 degree curve on the conveyor and picked doughnuts and boxed them as customers were streaming in. 6AM on a Saturday morning and everyone strolling in seemed to know each other and were laughing and talking and I was standing there stumbling through trying to get the doughnuts off the line without poking extra holes in them in the process. I was glad to be there learning something about the rhythm of the store but I was not in the same mood as the employees and customers. At the time I felt like I was the only stranger in the place. Everybody else was family.

Over the years that followed it became clear what was happening in all Krispy Kreme stores and I see it in our stores today in Laredo, Austin, San Marcos, San Antonio, and El Paso: you never meet a stranger in a Krispy Kreme store because you didn’t come in to eat a meal, you came in to treat yourself with a fun indulgence and some light conversation and everybody else in there with you has the same thing in mind. We keep the physical atmosphere nice and clean and the stores are interesting, but when you add in the human element of enthusiastic employees greeting friends and families who have hot Krispy Kreme’s on their minds then you’ve entered an entirely unique experience unlike any other. You hear the stories everyday from customers describing their first Krispy Kreme doughnut in great details like where they had it, who was with them at the time, and what that first doughnut tasted like. With all due respect, because I love Big Macs, when was the last time someone excitedly described to you eating their first Big Mac and where they were at the time and who was with them?! Big Macs are good food (to me, at least cause I’m no food snob counting calories and carbs with every bite), and Krispy Kreme doughnuts are good fun…they offer an experience that has to be experienced by our customers because we at our Glazing Saddles Krispy Kreme franchise in Texas can’t tell you how you feel when you bite into a hot glazed…that experience is yours and when it happens, many people like to tell others about it. Marketing guru’s call that “word of mouth advertising.” where Krispy Kreme doesn’t write the script, our customers do.

There’s a story I want to tell that kind of sums up what this ‘never meet a stranger’ blog is all about. There’s a Krispy Kreme store in Atlanta that us insiders call “Ponce.” It’s called because since the early 60’s when it was built (I’d tell you the exact date it was built but I’m writing this on Sunday and the Steelers game – my wife’s from Pittsburgh – is coming on soon and I don’t have time or patience for historical doughnut research right now) it was constructed in a fine neighborhood on a street named Ponce de Leon. The store’s still there and going stronger than ever although the neighborhood has gotten a little frayed around the edges over time. The building was built by founder Vernon Rudolph and he and the entire company where proud of its great design and gabled, big green roof. It was to be how many Krispy Kreme stores would look in the years ahead and over time it got the clunky nickname, “Green Roofer.” Actually, if you look at our website, krispykremetexas.com, and go to our just-opened new El Paso store on Mesa you’ll see that we copied the look of the old green roofers and we think it turned out pretty good, nostalgia and all.

Back on track here on strangers in Ponce. I saw this with my own eyes and I’m reminded of it any time I walk into a Krispy Kreme store. I remember it even more clearly as I wrote down what I saw. It was in 2001 on a late fall morning around 8:30 and the Ponce store was busy and full of people. It was pretty cold and windy outside but inside it was warm and smelled like doughnuts and coffee. Standing in line and sitting at tables were our customers, who in that neighborhood were really a very mixed bag. The ones in line are the ones I remember most. There was a young couple with a baby; a blue collar worker with his refillable Krispy Kreme coffee mug; an expectant mom with what appeared to be her mom; two banker types in business suits, one with an umbrella; a biker with tattoos on his neck and his lady friend with tattoos, their Harley sitting just outside the front window; a skinny, shabby teenager with blue and green hair; and a well-appointed older lady who had actually been driven up to the front door in a Bentley! These were the customers who at that moment were in line to place their orders. And guess what? They were all talking to each other, some laughing, the mother holding her baby was proudly talking about her child to the bikers. The Bentley lady was talking to the sometimes homeless man who was having his regular (everyday, free) morning coffee at a table beside where she was standing and who, some said, lived somewhere ‘out behind the store and up the street’. Everybody was talking to each other like they were in some big, happy family and the moment couldn’t have been more poignant. These same people would never speak to each other outside this Krispy Kreme store. They were from too many different walks of life, but at this moment in this place called Ponce there wasn’t a stranger among them because they were bound by one, simple thing – they were now good friends tied together solely by a doughnut. Not just any doughnut. It was a Krispy Kreme doughnut. I’ve often heard people say, when talking about our doughnut after a “Ponce-type” moment that I had witnessed: “Well, it’s just the power of the doughnut.” That may be true, but, of course, that’s for you to decide.

By-the-way, I’ll be in our Krispy Kreme store on 183 in Austin next Monday morning around 7:30. Don’t be a stranger – drop by and say hello. We need to talk.

Krispy Mike

Let’s Talk About Chocolate!

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To celebrate the New Year, I’m having a ‘cacao moment.’ But before I tell you what that means I’d like to tell you from where I ‘borrowed’ the chocolate headline just above. When I was serving my decade at Krispy Kreme corporate I became very interested in the vast, colorful, and at times, convoluted history of the company. The history was never convoluted to our customers; it was only so to those of us who got swept up in it starting when the company began in 1937. I came along for my ten years of service in marketing beginning in 1994 and now as I sit in Texas today with 8 Krispy Kreme stores wrangled in various ways by franchise partners Krispy Randy, Krispy Mark and me, Krispy Mike, I was thinking back to the day of leafing through one of the hundreds of old ‘Krispy Kreme News’ that was published in the 50′s up through the 80′s (off and on, on occasion) I came across an article with the headline, “Let’s Talk About Chocolate.” I laughed out loud because I imagined our founder, Vernon Rudolph, sitting down at a Krispy Kreme coffee bar in 1950, lighting up a Camel, and while puffing out blue smoke he looks you in the eye and says, “Let’s talk about chocolate.” And then he would launch into one of his trademark doughnut rants and about the value of chocolate as it relates to our doughnuts and how happy chocolate makes you feel when enjoyed on top of or inside of one of our yeast raised doughnuts, and why else would you give it as a gift to someone you like or love on Valentine’s Day other than it makes them love you more. I guess I shouldn’t have added the cigarette part, but hey, there were zero PC guilt trips floating around in 1950 and I just wanted to be historically correct, and besides, Vernon came to Winston-Salem in the first place to start Krispy Kreme because he got his GPS info off of a pack of Camels when he noticed that smokes-maker RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company was headquartered in Winston-Salem therefore there must be a lot of people there, therefore that’s where he drove and started it all. Once again, I digress, which I’ve been told is a sign of old age.

Back to my ‘cacao moment.’ Cacao is where all chocolate comes from. Theobroma cacao is the tree where the beans come from and the name of the tree translated literally means “food of the gods.” This originating source of chocolate has been around for 3,000 to 4,000 years depending on which expert you’re talking to who is old enough to remember. I’m not a Chef Ron, our brilliant chef at Krispy Kreme corporate, so this is not a launch into some scientific, historical think piece, it’s just my take on how amazing chocolate is in it’s hundreds of thousands of forms today all originating with the cacao bean in some shady rain forest thousands of years ago. Cacao has properties in its chemistry that can have serious positive effects on all sorts of things within your body and it is said that chocolate, because of the elements within it, can actually make you happy and even healthier. I’m going to pause here and assure you that I make no health claims about the power of cacao but if you’re interested you can find tons of info on the internet to fill in your chocolate blanks.

Cocoa, which is what I always called that powder you put in milk to make a fine drink, is where all chocolate originates before things are added to make it taste less bitter. It’s becoming popular today to call it ‘cacao’ but cocoa’s fine, too. Frankly just ‘chocolate’ is what I call it and there are thousands of recipes around using chocolate in it’s dark form to light form, to milk chocolate, to white chocolate, and so on. Now, if you’re a chocolate lover like I am you probably already know about it’s origins. I just want to inform you of some other chocolate origins that you can find right now today.

Get in your car, or take a bus, or ride your Harley or jog to a Krispy Kreme store in Laredo or Austin or San Marcos or San Antonio or El Paso, and walk right into any of our eight stores located in those cities and you can have your own ‘cacao moment’. Let me just give you a hint of what’s in store for you and your buds, and your taste buds, too. We start out with one of our signature yeast-raised doughnut ‘shells’ and we hand fill it with fluffy dark chocolate Kreme filling and then dip it in bittersweet, dark chocolate icing and then onto the icing we drizzle our sweet milk chocolate icing in nice stripes across the top. Whoa! If that doesn’t set you completely free then dive into one of our Dark Chocolate Iced Glazed Doughnuts for dessert. We create that one by starting with our Original Yeast Raised Glazed doughnut and hand dip it into dark chocolate icing. Whoa! Again! And if you’re still not quite satisfied you can make the next step simple by having our Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake doughnut that we run under the waterfall of glaze. Third ‘Whoa!’

Wait just a minute – when I say ‘Whoa’ to describe a Krispy Kreme chocolate reaction, that’s just me over-talking while still having one of those ‘cacao moments’ and besides, writing about chocolate just brings out euphoria in me. We have a solid rule at our Glazing Saddles Krispy Kreme franchise in Texas that we will never boast about our products because it’s up to our customers to find out for themselves how much they like Krispy Kremes. It’s not up to us to tell them. What they say to others after trying our doughnuts is up to them. Now I’ll admit that I got a little too close to boasting about our now-running Dark Chocolate promotion but if you’ll cut me a little slack until you’ve tried one of the Dark Chocolate doughnuts yourself, at that point you can say it’s only right that I almost boasted, or you can say whatever you want. I think I know what you’re going to say, but I wouldn’t dare boast about it.

A final note in a sad song. Ed Tames, the beloved and talented General Manager of our big store in El Paso, and also the first manager we hired nearly 12 years ago for our first store in Austin, died suddenly on December 28th at age 55. Saying that he will be missed by his wife and family and his Glazing Saddles family is not enough. And right now, I don’t know what to say that would be enough. To Ed!

Krispy Mike

Why Does Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Have A Chef?

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Krispy Mike’s Blog
December 26, 2011

Why Does Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Have A Chef?

You ever wonder why kids love sprinkles on their Krispy Kreme doughnuts? Well, at our Glazing Saddles stores out here in Texas they sure do, they munch em up by the tons and smile the whole time. I have to be honest; I’ve never been a big sprinkles kind of guy other than handing one to a child in one of our stores to enjoy seeing the sparkling reaction in their eyes as they take a bite. Just before Christmas I put together a box of our Christmas doughnuts – Christmas Sprinkles, Christmas Wreath, Frosting the Snowman, and Red Velvet Cake to give to my doctor who keeps me very much alive through various means and as I picked his out I picked out an identical assortment for my wife and me. I got home and first thing opened the box and picked out a Christmas Sprinkled doughnut and bit into it. Wow! an epiphany…even stronger – it was a seminal moment in my doughnut life! Crunching those sprinkles was like eating the most delicious candy you could find anywhere and when topped on our doughnut, we’re talking ‘out of the park homerun’, ‘magic moment’…all that stuff we make up raving slogans about. The story could end here by referring back to the title, that THIS sprinkle moment is why Krispy Kreme Doughnuts has a chef. But I won’t let you off the hook without telling you the true story (some of my stories make people say ‘reading your stories is like trying to shovel smoke’ which gives me a slight shiver of pride for some reason) about how we came to discover the right chef at the right time for a doughnut company growing up fast.

Enter the reason for the great tastes at Krispy Kreme – Chef Ron Rupocinski, our chef at corporate Krispy Kreme. I should call him Research Chef Ron and he is the story behind this blog. Where from under our waterfall of glaze did he come from? I know the answer and if you don’t mind, I’ll tell you about how this wonderful, creative recipe maker for our company came to be in his Krispy kitchen in Winston-Salem, NC. I hired him, that’s how. But it wasn’t that simple, believe me. And for you 5 people who actually read this blog, here’s the story, finally.

Warren LaRuth. Know that name? You really should if you love food. Serious restaurateurs and the good people of lower Mississippi knew him well. A formidable, brilliant chef said to have ‘perfect taste’ who plied his culinary art for decades in New Orleans at his restaurant named LaRuth’s. Mr. LaRuth was without equal while at his peak and is still considered one of the most talented chefs ever in NOLA. Google him up and you’ll see. Here’s how I met him.

Several years ago while I was at Krispy Kreme corporate the notion started floating about that if we were to continue to be the leader in the doughnut business that it might make sense if we had a pastry chef of some sort to stir up new products complimentary to our Hot Original Glazed doughnuts and other assorted varieties. The idea grew and I was assigned the task of finding that chef to bring him or her into the fold in Winston-Salem. Sounded easy to me but I quickly found out that there are but a tiny handful of ‘Research Chef’s’, as they‘re referred to, in the world, much less hanging out and looking for work around central NC where Krispy Kreme’s headquarters is located. There are perhaps just a few hundred working research chef’s nationwide and considering that there are tens of thousands chefs sautéing, and flipping and stirring and poaching meals in restaurants all over the US, how could we find just one of these highly specialized research chefs to come invent doughnuts for a doughnut company? After running ads in various restaurant publications and getting nowhere, I called a friend who’s a successful restaurateur and hotelier to ask if he knew of any research chefs I might interview and he said no but he did know a resourceful restaurant consultant who had helped him do seasonal menu changeovers in his own restaurants without missing a beat, and the man’s name was Warren LaRuth. My friend was right about Mr. LaRuth’s resourcefulness.

I commissioned Mr. LaRuth over the phone at his home in Mississippi and he soon arrived at corporate headquarters in Winston-Salem where we spent three eye-opening days, mostly in the lab and mix plant where he tasted everything in sight. At one point he asked the keeper of our extremely top secret yeast raised doughnut recipe if he could dry-taste a dot of our raw mix from his fingertip and was given permission to have at it. Mr. LaRuth gently placed the mix on his tongue, rolled it around in his mouth for a few seconds and then proceeded to call out every ingredient in our secret recipe. I knew he had hit it on the button when I saw our proprietary mix gatekeeper’s lower jaw land squarely on the lab floor. Remember, I said earlier that Mr. LaRuth was blessed with ‘perfect taste’ like a musician with ‘perfect pitch’. He proved it to us that day. And with his almost Santa Claus-like smile he also promised not to tell anyone.

After absorbing everything about Krispy Kreme’s recipes and cooking methods he provided a profile of what he considered to be the perfect research chef fit for our company. And with his directives and a lot more investigative work I found a pastry chef/chef in Los Angeles. His name is Ron Rupocinski but we just call him Chef Ron. What he has done for Krispy Kreme products has been just this side of Heaven. He is constantly creating new recipes for our special offerings, both seasonal and event focused. Plus, he has found new ways to make our fillings and toppings better than any in the doughnut industry. Chef Ron doesn’t tinker around with our yeast-raised original glazed doughnut recipe though cause that’s stepping into some pretty sacred ground which will never change. But he has created unbelievable ways to use our signature doughnut in wedding cakes, birthday cakes, Christmas cakes, Halloween cakes and on and on. People literally all over the world make special cakes out of Krispy Kreme doughnuts using Chef Ron’s design ideas and I’m sure that’s a trend that will not end sooner or later. You ought to see some of the pictures that come in.

But beyond Chef Ron’s skills with doughnut creations are his skills with how our varieties of doughnuts have just the right taste to our customers. He has improved and continues to improve flavor profiles (a big way to say, ‘that tastes really good’ ) of all our products even down to how candy-like wonderful the sprinkles on our sprinkled doughnuts crunch and melt when you eat them. I hadn’t had one of our Sprinkles doughnuts in a very long time until the Christmas one just the other day. I am still somewhat amazed at how the sprinkles just leap out and jolt into a smile. And while Krispy Kreme has always had really good sprinkles, now, they’re simply great. And that, blog readers, is why Krispy Kreme doughnuts has a chef!—(among a dozen other things.)

Some day while you’re munching on one of Chef Ron’s Krispy Kreme creations, I might tell you about the time Chef Ron accompanied me on my product placement rounds to the TV and movie sound stages in LA. We went onto the set of NYPD Blue and the cast and crew were breaking for lunch and guess which star Ron struck up a conversation with and who later invited Ron to go bow hunting at that star’s ranch way out west? Hint: he was in HBO’s Lonesome Dove. But that’s another story for another day somewhere over the rainbow and under the waterfall of glaze.

The Best,

Krispy Mike…
…hangin out at our Krispy Kreme stores at various times in Laredo, Austin, San Marcos, San Antonio, and El Paso. Come say hello and I’ll give you a hot Original yeast-raised Krispy Kreme right off the line.

Christmas in the City

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Have you gotten all your Christmas shopping done yet? I was just sitting here in my Glazing Saddles office in Austin polishing off one of our tinglingly delicious Krispy Kreme Pumpkin Spice doughnuts while looking out my imaginary window, thinking of snow, when I was shocked into remembering that I haven’t even started my Christmas shopping yet! This is not good. We have our tree up here in the office with nothing under it yet so I guess I’m not the only one running late. Our Krispy Kreme stores in Laredo, Austin, San Marcos, San Antonio, and El Paso are decorated and ready and our Hot Original Glazed doughnuts are jumping off the lines for all of you to enjoy. I guess I could make my shopping simple by giving our special Christmas doughnuts as gifts but that wouldn’t be much of a surprise as I give doughnuts to my friends and family and the folks at the hardware store, my doctor’s office, and and to a lot of places just about everywhere I go all the time. Of course all Glazing Saddlers do that. So if I gave you a Frosting the Snowman doughnut, or a Christmas Wreath doughnut or a Red Velvet Cake doughnut or a Pumpkin Spice doughnut you would be made merry and bright but you wouldn’t be that surprised. It would be like if someone gave you a gift that wasn’t wrapped. Bummer.

Enough of my dilemma! Have you ever been to New York City at Christmas? Now that is a trip you’ll never forget. Once, my wife and I and a bunch of Krispy Kreme people were in New York in December. I was head of Marketing at Corporate Krispy Kreme at the time and was just getting involved in product placement for the Krispy Kreme brand. Fortunately we had, after 6 months of negotiation, been given a major prize at the time, of building a Krispy Kreme conveyor line on the set of the brand new Rosie O’Donnell Show. The conveyor was designed to come out of a wall behind and stage right of Rosie and then went behind her and over to the band. Our brilliant engineers from the equipment department in Winston-Salem, NC, where all Krispy Kreme doughnut equipment are designed and beautifully welded up (those welder fellows are artists!), went with me earlier and measured and pondered and then went back to WS and built the conveyor specifically for her set. The idea was that we would have some kind of lever for Rosie to throw and the conveyor would start moving filled with all varieties of Krispy Kreme doughnuts which she could pick off the line and share with whoever was her guest at the time. (Also, each person in the studio audience had a dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts under their seats each day we were there – that was a biggie for them) I somehow found an authentic WWII submarine “ding-ding-ding, full speed ahead” device in an antique marine junk business in San Diego appropriately named ‘Sea Junk’. The piece of equipment had some provenance as it had been used in the movie ‘Thresher’ starring John Wayne. Mr. Wayne had actually thrown this very lever thing in the movie (I just can’t remember what they’re called but you know what they are…they sit on a pedestal and are round and made of brass and have words like 1/4 Speed, 1/2 Speed, Full Speed on it’s face and a handle-lever on top that the captain controls to make the sub go faster or slower. Whew, TMI). Anyway we acquired it and our technicians actually wired it up so it could sit right on Rosie’s studio desk and she could throw the lever and out would come the Krispy Kremes. Of course our logos were all over it and on the wall over where the doughnuts came out so we were really happy about it in a very big way. Rosie was great and threw the lever often (and always unannounced) which made me have to leap into action each time behind that wall and quickly place doughnuts on the conveyor. It was a lot of pressure but a lot of fun during the two shows we were on. Everyone was in such a festive mood and the crew was over-the-top helpful and generous with their good advice. This whole event really launched our product placement efforts and landed me in Los Angeles on the stages of many television shows and movies helping get Krispy Kreme doughnuts on camera. But this is another story for another blog time.

Sorry for the ramble above, it just came out that way. The original point to what I was going to write was about how Manhattan at Christmas is just about the most Christmasy place you’ll ever experience. Not as great as at my house out in the country in North Carolina at Christmas when it snowed 10 inches last year, but certainly New York at Christmas should be on your wish list.

BUT what I was actually going to tell you was that after the Rosie show was ‘in the can’ my wife and I went to Radio City Music Hall for the Christmas Show complete with the Rockettes. During the show they actually had live camels on the stage and I kept noticing one that was not acting just right and his “Wise Man” handler was having great difficulty maintaining that hump back’s composure. And then, all of a sudden, guess what happened?! Well, in keeping with the traditions of this Christmas Season, I can’t tell you what happened right now because it has to be a surprise!

Hint: Come on over to your Krispy Kreme store. If you happen to see me there introduce yourself and I’ll whisper the end of the camel story to you. How will you know it’s me? If I don’t have on my Williams-Sonoma ‘Krispy Mike’ apron then the other way to recognize me is that I look just like my father.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays and let’s all prosper in the New Year!

Krispy Mike