News Track: Doughnut stores eying new locations, more business

BACKGROUND

Hurts Donut Company, which prides itself on making 'whimsical” doughnuts, in 2015 opened its first Iowa location, its fourth overall.

Already with stores in Springfield, Mo., Norman, Okla., and Wichita, Kan., is ended weeks of speculation over a local location when it picked a Coralville site.

WHAT'S HAPPENED SINCE

This may be a good year for doughnut fans.

Tyler Howard, co-owner of the Hurts Donuts Company, said he and his fellow co-owners are weighing the possibility of opening another location somewhere in Iowa.

'We're looking at a few spots right now to build out,” Howard said. 'There's no hard timeline. The rumors have been flying already, but at this point, we haven't decided on anything.”

Howard, along with his wife, Paige Howard, his brother, Kyle Howard and sister-in-law, Cyndi Howard, opened the Coralville shop at 1301 Fifth St. #105, in 2015. Since then, the store has done 'better than what we expected,” Howard said.

Riding on the success, Hurts opened its second Iowa location in West Des Moines in December.

'It made sense,” Howard said. 'Des Moines was a bigger market, and we were looking for bigger market, so Des Moines was a perfect fit.”

A new Dunkin' Donuts also is planned for the southwest side of Cedar Rapids sometime this year, said Andrea Farley, director of operations for Eastern Iowa Food Service - which operates Dunkin' Donuts across east and central Iowa.

IT bought land at 1640 Edgewood Rd. SW for the Massachusetts-based company's new site.

Eastern Iowa Food Service has a development agreement with Dunkin' Donuts for 12 stores in the Cedar Rapids-Iowa City area by 2018. Currently, there are 10 stores in eastern and central Iowa.

Donutland, at 4307 Center Point Rd. NE in Cedar Rapids, also has seen a recent success thanks to a change. The store - which has been open since the early 1970s - broke a decades-old practice and began accepting credit cards Nov. 1.

Sharon Cook, a manager at Donutland, said the shop has seen a 'huge increase in customers” since then.

'It was time for us to keep up with the times,” owner Vicki Zinkula said. 'My customers needed that convenience and so we decided to provide them that.”

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