Doughnut shop labor of love for Post Falls owners

POST FALLS – For Don and his nameless cohorts, it’s an assortment of bear claws, glazed rings and classic maple bars that have helped kick-start their morning routine for almost nine months. Inside the cream-colored residence of The Donut House in Post Falls, the group often welcomes the workday around a corner table over fresh-brewed coffee, fresh-baked pastries and idle chitchat.

What attracted the four-man crew, and keeps them coming back, fits nicely in the palm of your hand, but better, they say, in your belly.

“(It’s the) quality of the food, quality of the doughnut,” said Don, who preferred to remain last-nameless. As frequenters since the shop opened nearly nine months ago, they’ve had ample opportunity to test each hand-glazed, filled or rolled fried cake – and have never been let down.

“They’re all good. There hasn’t been anything in here that’s disappointed us,” he said. Go down to any other store and compare the two pastries, he instructed, and you’ll see and taste the difference. They can become habit-forming, he added.

Though it was nearing noontime this Tuesday, the four-man crew was disposing of the toils from a day begun much earlier for Matt Gross, owner of The Donut House. Since opening, the home-turned-doughnut house on the corner of Seventh Avenue and Fredrick Street, Gross has devoted his early morning hours to the craft of the perfect pastry, often starting the fresh-baking process before midnight – up to nine hours on weekends before their doors open.

But it’s a labor of love that the 33-year-old Gross has carried on since childhood, when his dad first opened a similar shop in California.

“I’ve been making doughnuts a long time; kind of born into it. It’s in your blood,” Gross said. About his nocturnal mixing, baking, filling and glazing activities, he said “You’re used to it, but you’re never really used to it if you know what I mean. That’s why we have good coffee.”

Whether it’s in the blood or in the batter, through the years the Gross family has opened more than 10 pastry purveyors across the West, while sticking to a time- and customer-tested creed. “There is a way to do it cheaper,” Gross explained. But, he added, “We make our doughnuts fresh each morning, and we make them the old-fashioned way by hand. We also use top of the line products.”

Three years ago, however, before the single-story home at 107 E. Seventh Ave. became The Donut House, the Gross family, including wife April and their three children, had just moved to the area. And once here, they realized something in the community was amiss – it was a glaring manufacturing omission that caught their attention. “There’s no just-doughnut shop,” Matt Gross said. “And this town needs it.”

But before they could start a new business, they had to first find a location. After searching for almost a year, the family came upon the little corner house, which all ready had been set up by the home’s owner as a bakery complete with an oven, mixers, display case and just enough room for a relaxed seating area. “We really didn’t have to do anything,” said April Gross, co-owner who also works at the shop along with three other employees. “All the equipment was here.”

Once the shop opened and word spread in the community of their old-fashioned take on crullers, fruit-filled and glazed tortillas, apple fritters and other assortment of spherical creations, The Donut House’s mixers shifted in to dough-beating overdrive to make the hundreds of scrumptious sinkers that pass through the glass case and into eager North Idahoans six days a week.

Though their hand-made products cost a bit more, the end result is well worth the effort, according to the owners and several regulars. “Some people come in and say ‘You’re a little more expensive,’ ” Matt Gross said. “But that’s our motto: you pay for what you get.”

As for The Donut House’s selection, Gross said they try to keep it simple; they’re not trying to reinvent the edible wheel. “We stay basic,” he said. “If you do it good and do it right, people are going to come.”