Hometown Mini Donuts owner Doug Cross turned a childhood obsession with state fair mini doughnuts into an adorable Pittsboro cafe and a roaming yellow food trailer, both equipped with Rube Goldberg-like conveyor machines that drop and fry the little morsels while customers watch and wait. In this conversation, he shares how a sweet side hustle became his lifelong dream job and full-time calling.
How did you get into the mini doughnut business?
When I was a little kid, I used to go to the Illinois State Fair with my dad every year. He loved horses, and right outside the horse Coliseum was a mini doughnut stand. I would eat mini doughnuts like three times a day. He’d always ask me if I wanted to go to the see the horses, and I was sure going to say yes as long as doughnuts were involved. So that kind of planted the seed. I moved to Indiana in 2006 and was working for O’Charley’s Restaurant & Bar, but the mini doughnut business had always been a thought at the back of my mind. So I researched it and decided to buy the mobile food truck and try it part time on the side.
How did running the food trailer compare to your day job?
I loved it. I did it part time for almost 14 years. But sometimes I was so busy at work, I would have to cancel bookings. I was the general manager at O’Charley’s and had to put the family first. And then when Covid came along, I stuck it out for another year and a half, but I reached a point where all I was doing was opening and closing restaurants nonstop without a day off. Everybody has a breaking point, and when my breaking point came, I decided to give the mini doughnut business a chance to make it on its own. And then last year, this storefront opened up, and I thought it would be a good chance to open up a small shop.
Part of the fun is watching the doughnuts get made right before your eyes. Can you walk me through the mechanics?
The machine drops two doughnuts at a time into the hot oil. They have a hole and everything. It flips them over after about 20 seconds to cook the other side. So it takes 40 seconds total for the first two to come out. It’s a cute process.
And then you have a whole menu of sugar tosses and glazes that you add right before you serve them warm. What are some of your favorite flavors?
Our maple bacon is very popular. I have some rotating specialties like strawberry shortcake with glaze and crumbs that are very nice. I do lemon-blueberry, Dubai chocolate, and Oreo-topped s’mores. I’m always thinking up new flavors.
In addition to running a unique business, you are running a business in a small town. Do you have neighborhood customers who come in every day for their doughnuts and coffee?
Oh, yeah. We have one person who comes almost every day. He loves our maple bourbon sugar donuts. He always gets an iced vanilla latte. We make the syrups for our lattes in-house. He gets chocolate and strawberry doughnuts for his family, and then one order of our doughnuts and gravy. We also have a dentist office across the street, and they come over quite regularly for coffee.
They should send their patients over for doughnuts. That would be good job security for a dentist.
And they do! We opened in the middle of winter, so I didn’t have giant expectations. Some days are slower than other days. You might go an hour and see nobody, and then next thing you know, there are 15 people standing there.
How do you want people to feel when they walk through the door of your shop?
I want them to feel welcome. And I want them to feel like this is going to be fun. Most of the people come in because they know we make great doughnuts. But they also come because they know we’re really friendly. It’s funny, when kids walk in the door, they walk straight to this little stool we have set out so that they can stand up and watch the doughnuts being made. Small-town is fun. We like it.
