Black Friday Donut Frenzy

We were invited by Sears to come and set up in their parking lot on Black Friday. We were excited for the opportunity to give Gram's Mini Donuts some exposure and to provide the hoards of black Friday shoppers with hot donuts, coffee and hot chocolate. Well, provide we did!

We ran into a problem right off the bat when we went to use our new (very expensive) extention cord. The ends of the cord were not the right ends needed to plug into our power source. Luckily, a good friend of ours happened to be driving through the parking lot, saw us setting up and decided to stop. Turned out, he had everything Danny needed to switch out the plugs and we were up and going in no time.

We dropped our first donut at 6pm on Thursday and never stopped the machine until Friday afternoon at 2:20pm. When you factor in the set up/take down, we pulled a full 24 hour shift. There were lots of hungry and cold shoppers lined up at the various stores in the shopping center with Sears. Opening times were staggered enough that lines continued throughout the night.

The weather more than cooperated with temps in the 60's during the day on Thursday and only dropping down to the mid 40's. Friday morning we battled some wind and rain, but by lunchtime the clouds had parted and the sun made a brief appearance.

Our oldest daughter and her boyfriend came and helped out in the middle of the night giving Danny and I the chance to catch a few winks in the back of the Suburban. We took blankets and pillows and although it wasn't the same as our nice warm bed, it was nice not to have to make the drive home while we were sleepy.

All in all, our first Black Friday experience was a good one. The shoppers were all friendly and grateful to have a hot snack and hot drinks available to them while they waited in lines and shopped. We hope that all of you had an enjoyable Thanksgiving with family and friends and that you were able to find some great Black Friday bargains!

Fall has been our season!

Over the course of the last few months we have provided mini donuts at a few local car shows, a benefit for a local church and we have been adopted by Sears. We have set up in their parking lot in the middle of a large shopping center for some sidewalk sales. 

My favorite gig so far has been setting up at the Sierra Hull Bluegrass Festival in Byrdstown, TN. This was a 2 day event. I love bluegrass music and the people at this festival were just so dang nice :) They all made us feel like part of a big family and we have already marked our calendar for next years event.

November has been a big month for us. We were asked by the band to come and work the high school football game. This was by far our largest selling event. We cranked the machine up on high and it never stopped making donuts the entire game. Not only were we invited back for the following weeks game, but the tennis team at the same school voted to use us as their fall fundraiser.  The tennis team took pre-orders for buckets of mini donuts and we set up on Friday morning to fill those orders (the same day and location of the football game). We wound up making donuts for 15 hours straight! The tennis team raised some money as did the band. We were both wore out, but happy that our little donuts were finally getting some recognition.

It is great when we hear "Hey, don't you make the little donuts? I love those things". Our next gig is at Sears for Black Friday. I'm not sure if we are ready, but last Friday sure broke us in good. I think we can handle about anything at this point!

We are having fun and spending time together as a family. It doesn't get much better than that.