Doughnut Dedication Pastry Store Commands A Loyal Following

The parking lot behind The Donut Parade in the morning hours is always packed.

It’s mostly an older crowd that frequents this donut shop at 2152 N. Hamilton. There are cars with bumper stickers that read, “Old Fart’s Wife,” and “My grandkids look better than yours.”

Here, the back entrance serves as the main one. Upon entering, a long, narrow corridor finally opens up to a room full of people chowing down on maple bars, guzzling coffee and gnawing each other’s ears.

“Everybody’s like a big family here,” said waitress Colleen Taylor.

She recently took another job to make more money, but she soon quit to go back to the donut shop.

“I missed the customers,” she said. “They’re nice people.”

The place is so popular that not even a car driving through the store front last week could keep people away.

On Sept. 7, 90-year-old Mabel Maxwell drove her car through the smoking section of the doughnut shop and pinned 78-year-old Russell Schafer against a wall for nearly 30 minutes before he could be removed and taken to Deaconess Medical Center.

Maxwell was cited for making an improper turn. She was not injured in the crash.

“The crash sounded so bad that at first I didn’t even want to turn around,” said store owner Darrell Jones. “When I went back there, Russ had blood pouring from his mouth.”

Schafer was released from the hospital on Friday.

The accident revealed a heartfelt sentiment that emanates through the store. Here, people care about each other.

An outpouring of customers and visitors who heard about the crash showed up to make sure no one was hurt. Not only that, they wanted one of Jones’ famous maple bars.

Here, service still comes with a smile and a warmup on the coffee. Jones, 71, has owned and worked at The Donut Parade for all of its 31 years.

The Donut Parade probably won’t make its way onto the National Historical Register.

Jones has purchased adjoining buildings and connected them like a maze. The shop encompasses close to 5,000 square feet with 2,700 of that for customer dining. Jones said he isn’t sure how much it will cost to repair the damaged section of the store.

There’s nothing sexy about the decor. Seventies-era paneling covers most of the walls. But the ambience here has nothing to do with aesthetics.

Kathy Lawson, 42, has frequented the doughnut shop for its entire existence. She even spent a year working for Jones when she was 22.

“It’s a great atmosphere here,” Lawson said. “The people are always friendly and, for the most part, the customers never change.”

Customers come from all over Spokane to get a taste of fresh, homemade doughnuts. And they’ll do anything to get their fill.

“Sometimes we’ve been so crowded that I’ve set customers down to eat in my office,” Jones said. “We don’t get a lot of blue nosers (snobs) in here.”

Treating customers and workers with hospitality - it’s something Jones said he learned from his father.

In 1934, William T. Jones, Darrell’s father, was a tobacco farmer in Durham, N.C., who had hired 10 black men to work his farm.

Word traveled fast through town about his new hires. Two members of the Ku Klux Klan visited Jones and told him the townsfolk didn’t appreciate him paying blacks.

“In those days, a visit was a warning,” Darrell Jones said. He was 8 years old and watched the heated exchange between the Klansmen and his father from the front door of their house.

Darrell saw his father get angry, turn and run into the house to get his shotgun.

“It was the first and last time I’d heard a Model A squeal rubber on a dirt road,” Jones recalled. “They were gone.”

The experience made Jones realize the importance of being true to oneself and treating others with respect and dignity.

And though Jones is technically retired, the business is in his wife’s name, Kathryn Jones. He retired two years ago so he could begin collecting Social Security benefits.

“It’s kind of ironic,” he said. “Newt Gingrich said the Social Security was going to run out. I wanted to get mine before it did. But the Social Security is still here and Newt is gone,” said Jones, a self-described Roosevelt Democrat.

Though he’s “retired,” Jones said arriving to set up shop at 5 a.m. keeps him feeling young.

“I get along with people good. This is an ideal situation for me,” he said.

But Jones said it is difficult watching many of the “old timers” pass away.

“There was a table of people last summer. There was Francis, Frank, Rudy and Burl. … They have all passed away in the last year,” he said.

He didn’t know their last names, but their faces and voices still burn in his mind.

Jones believes his customers aren’t customers; they’re family.

“I keep my prices low, give them a good product and treat ‘em nice,” Jones said.