Last week, I drove by the Krispy Kreme on Indian School Road and it was closed -- yep, as bare as an Original without the glaze. Curious, I called some other locations in town and was met with stone cold doughnut silence.
Except for the one in Mesa.
"I can't tell you what happened to them, just that the old ownership is gone," says Jason Sansom, Director of Operations for the new Krispy Kreme Arizona franchisee. "We took over the Mesa location, and that's the only one in the state for now."
In 2006, eight Krispy Kreme Doughnuts stores in Arizona unexpectedly closed and left dozens of workers without (surprise!) jobs. In 2008, Krispy Kreme came back to the state and, according to the Krispy Kreme Arizona website, as of 2010, had eleven locations (eight in the Valley and three in Tucson.) The East Valley Tribune reports the previous Krispy Kreme franchise was owned by "Doughnut" Dan Brinton, who also owns the Cajun restaurant, Beauregard Food Co., in Scottsdale.
Locations closing, folks outta work. Was it 2006 all over again?
Sansom says he doesn't know, but that the new franchisee for the market has a growth plan for Krispy Kreme in Arizona.
"They're called 'tunnel oven shops' or 'hot shops,'" Sansom tells me, "They're about 2000 to 2100 square feet. We're very excited about them."
Sansom could not tell me when or where the hot shops, which receive their doughnuts from a factory store (like Mesa) and contain "doughnut heating equipment that allow customers to have a hot doughnut experience throughout the day" might happen as part of the new growth plan for Krispy Kreme.
"Nothing's really happening right now," Sansom says. "We're just happy to be a part of Mesa."
