Glazed Doughnut Shop needs to move to a new home.
It looks like they are going to tear our building down. After only 18 months in business, we must find a new home.
Keren and Nick Rhodes are Amherst regional high school sweethearts and graduates. We moved back home with our two young children to follow our dream of opening a gourmet doughnut shop. The first 18 months have flown by in a whirlwind of growth and activity.
We recently found out that it is very likely that our building will be torn down to make room for a new development.
So... we went looking for a new location that can be a bigger and better permanent home for us and our customers for years to come. We even found a great space, the building owners have been amazing in working with us to make this move possible.
The new store will be right up the street in the center of town near Antonio's.
But moving costs money, and we put everything we had into remodeling our current location. We expected to be there for many, many years. Coming up with the funds to make this move happen, so soon after opening is a major challenge, and that's where we need your help.
Two common questions
1) Why can't you just go to a bank and get a loan?
2) How can this just happen to you, shouldn't you be getting some money out of this deal?
As will any complex situation, the answers to these questions are complex. But we will try to do our best to explain it.
1) Generally to get a loan as a small business, we would need to be able to show several years of tax returns with sufficient income to assure the bank we would be able to pay back the loan. Since we have only been open 18 months, we cannot do this.
2) Although in theory they would eventually have to offer us money to leave, we don't know when that would happen or how much they would offer us.
No matter how much is offered us, we need to have a space to move to when it comes time to move.
Open spaces in downtown Amherst are very rare, as downtown is so small. And building out a new space would likely be more expensive than the amount of money we would be offered.
There happens to be a space opening up now that is perfect for us, and is already mostly built out as a commercial kitchen so it would require significantly less money to make it work for us.
So we feel that moving now, while a space is available, and removing the cloud of uncertainty about the future is the only option that will allow us to grow our business for the long run.
What We Need & What You Get
We will need all kinds of things in order to make this move possible. The list is just beginning and includes:
- New signs
- New paint and decor
- New furniture and equipment to fit the new space
- New permits and inspections (which come with fees)
- Lots of work to make the new space fit our needs so we can produce our delicious doughnuts for you.
Our perks include:
We have both individual and group perks.
Want to get together with all the students in your house, your sports team can come together to support us, any group can donate and we have perks targeted specifically to groups of people who come together to help us out.
Cool swag like our Glazed Doughnut sticker and our exclusive Glazed Doughnut Shop "Doughnut Snob" t-shirt.
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Free doughnuts, invites to our grand re-opening party, chances to invent your own doughnut and have it featured on our menu, and best of all, the chance to come behind the counter and make doughnuts from start to finish with us and get to experience all the fun.
Bigger, better and more permanent
The new space will be way bigger, with lots of room to sit, and bathrooms for the convenience and comfort of our customers. It is also handicap accessible which means more of our customers can actually get in the door.
We will also have more room to expand our production to more delicious baked goods, and especially to more variety in our gluten free/vegan line of goods. And we would like to add an old fashioned soda fountain with homemade syrups and other specialty drinks.
In addition the new space will be in a building that is not in danger of being torn down in the near future. In the new space we will have the ability to build a long lasting local business.
We are hoping to have very little downtime, but some time closed is inevitable. We would like to be able to continue to pay our valued employees even while we are closed and moving, and some of the funds raised will go toward that.
Please share and help save a local business
Even if you can't contribute to our campaign, you can help spread the word and support us that way. Share our story with your friends, family and co-workers, and help to save a local family business.
