New Sweet Tooth doughnut shop brings international flair to South Hill

A Ukrainian refugee family soft launched their second business in Spokane this past month, celebrating doughnut shop Sweet Tooth’s official opening Oct. 1 with bunches of balloons out front.

Marking the South Hill with its turquoise and white building – which used to house Brain Freeze Ice Cream – Sweet Tooth offers customers a variety of Ukrainian and French pastries, all crafted same day.

Igor Yorke, who owns the business with his wife of 25 years Iryna, has studied pastrymaking extensively in France – flying over every couple of months for baking classes. Their doughnuts are set apart from the average shop by the brioche dough, natural glaze and a quality frying oil.

“I learn all the time, everywhere, and I try to find the best what is this,” Yorke said. “I don’t want to say someone is not good, but you can smell on my box when is the doughnuts. And smell any box, any doughnut shop and then compare.”

The husband and wife duo also own Cedar Coffee on Monroe, which has been a morning destination for locals since 2017.

“I roast coffee because I am a coffee man,” Yorke said. “You ask, ‘Who are you?’ I’m a coffee man, and after some time I decided to open a small bakery.”

Despite having a mechanical engineering degree, Yorke said he has owned businesses all his life. In Donetsk, Ukraine, he owned a coffee shop before Russia invaded the area in 2014.

“In this time, a lot of bomb everywhere. I have house – my house was bombed. If you have nothing, what should you do?” Yorke said with a hearty laugh.

He made it to Spokane in September 2014, the last of his relatives to flee their home country.

“My parents landed in America in 2000,” Yorke said. “And after war started, when war started I decided to be with my family.”

Both Cedar Coffee and Sweet Tooth were able to come to fruition in part due to assistance from Spokane Neighborhood Action Partners, which provided a loan and coaching for the businesses.

Though Sweet Tooth has welcomed customers for a few weeks, Yorke said Oct. 1 was its official opening.

“I am not hurrying,” he said. “I need to figure out how is work this machine, how is the textile dough … just setting up.”

Yorke has gotten a handle of it now, though, with doughnuts and traditional Ukrainian babka prepped by employees, himself and his 17-year-old son Emil each morning.

“(Emil) was very excited to be working with them,” employee Olya Zuyev said. “He wakes up at 3 a.m. super excited to work, makes his older brother drive him here and he creates the dough. Igor taught him everything he knows.”

Zuyev began working at Cedar Coffee around five years ago, saying the “vibe is very friendly, very homey.” She found out after getting the job that her husband was related to Yorke. When she asked Yorke what her official title was, he responded, “she is my relative, and she is boss here.”

“Can’t leave, don’t want to leave,” she said. “The family is great – good to work with, very friendly – and I really do like that they focus on having high quality ingredients. Same with the coffee, he really focuses on having it perfect.”

Iryna Yorke is a perfectionist when it comes to making, Zuyev said. If she makes a mistake with one ingredient, she will throw out the entire batch.

“Her cakes are thin, but they’re not too thin. They’re sweet, but not too sweet. She mellows it out and makes it so good,” Zuyev said. “Americans or people that haven’t tried Eastern European cakes – you’ve got to try it.”

Yorke said he wants to bring a wider variety of baked goods to the business in time, including stuffed croissants. He thinks that his son Emil, after finishing school, will probably take over the business.

“I would say it’s family business,” Yorke said.