Michael Solomonov - Federal Donuts: The (Partially) True Spectacular Story

Copyright 2017 by Mike Solomonov, Steven Cook, Tom Henneman, Bob Logue, and Felicia DAmbrosio

Interior photography 2017 by Michael Persico

All rights reserved.

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

www.hmhco.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Solomonov, Michael, author. | Cook, Steven (Restaurateur), author.

Title: Federal Donuts / Mike Solomonov, Steven Cook.

Description: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, [2017] | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017029835 (print) | LCCN 2017015571 (ebook) | ISBN 9780544968592 (ebook) | ISBN 9780544969049 (paper over board)

Subjects: LCSH: Federal Doughnuts (Restaurant) | Doughnuts. | LCGFT: Cookbooks.

Classification: LCC TX770.D67 (print) | LCC TX770.D67 S65 2017 (ebook) | DDC 641.86/53dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017029835

v1.0917

ISBN 978-0-544-96904-9 (hardcover); 978-0-544-96859-2 (ebook)

FedNuts Kids from left: Leo Henneman, Leo Cook, Danny Cook, Eva Cook, and David Solomonov

As you ramble through Life, Brother, Whatever be your goal, Keep your eye upon the doughnut, And not upon the hole.

The Optimists Creed*

* Sally Levitt Steinberg tells us in The Donut Book (Storey Publishing, 2004) that her grandfather, Adolph Levitt, who invented the donut machine in the 1920s, found the Optimists Creed in a dime-store frame and adopted it.

Welcome!

Were the federal donuts partners.

mike solomonov

James Beard Award winning chef of Zahav and cofounder of CookNSolo Restaurants. Responsible for all ideas involving chicken suits.

steven cook

Former banker and chef, and cofounder of CookNSolo Restaurants (Zahav, Abe Fisher, Dizengoff). Currently looking for his next career (if you hear of anything).

tom henneman

Narrowly escaped a career in commercial real estate, grew a beard, and reemerged as FedNuts managing partner.

bobby logue

Owner of Bodhi coffee shops. Convinced four others that a nasty, greasy pizza parlor could be the start of an empire. Bob built the original store with his own hands.

felicia dambrosio

Youngest and coolest FedNuts partner. responsible for hashtags, f-bombs, hand signals, dance moves, and social media.

Mmm, doughnuts. Is there anything they cant do? -Homer Simpson

W E GET ASKED ALL THE TIME WHY CHICKEN AND DONUTS? ITS A FAIR QUESTION. PERHAPS ITS THE QUESTION. AND ITS OFTEN DELIVERED IN A TONE SUGGESTING WE MAY NOT HAVE BEEN IN OUR RIGHT MINDS.

Perhaps we meant to do chicken and waffles, but got disorientedlike how Columbus thought he had reached Asia, or Neil Armstrong thought hed landed on the moon. But theres a more fundamental question: Why donuts at all?

Thinking of donuts instantly puts me back in high school football practice on Saturdays. If wed won our game the night before, the practice would be short and joyful, a far cry from summer two-a-days. The coaches worked hard to be stern and serious as we heroically recounted our bumps and bruises. Soon released into the crisp Michigan autumn, with thirty-six hours to kill before the next practice, we would pile into a friends beat-up AMC Eagle station wagon and head straight for the Franklin Cider Mill, leaving with grease-stained paper bags of hot cider donuts. Wed spend the rest of the afternoon watching college football on TV. Those were our salad days, and donuts were the salad.

Virtually every culture has a dessert of sweetened fried dough proof of the donuts universal appeal. But donuts occupy a special place in Americawe eat about 10 billion of them a yearand the donut shop is a particularly American institution. Perhaps it has something to do with the ingenuity that surrounded the rise of the donut in this country. In 1920, Adolph Levitt, an immigrant fleeing czarist Russia, developed the first automatic donut machine, churning out eighty dozen identical donuts an hour for Broadway theater crowds. This encouraged fledgling chains like Krispy Kreme and Open Kettle (later called Dunkin Donuts) to spread the gospel of automatic donut machines (and their donut progeny).

Famed tourist attraction in La Puente, CA.

And in both World Wars, volunteer Donut Dolls went overseas to boost morale, giving donuts to American troops. For a time, Ellis Island immigrants were met by the Salvation Army with a blanket and a donutliterally their first taste of America. But above all is our blessed American belief in egalitarianism. At a nickel apiece, donuts were an affordable luxury even during the Great Depression, establishing the donuts enduring image as the food of the everyman: the cop on the beat, the construction worker on the job site, the office worker at her desk.

Every morning, Federal Donuts has the privilege of helping people start their day. A donut and a cup of coffee may be small things, but that and a smile can be more than enough. Tom remembers a lesson from his father: You never know who youre talking toyou dont know where theyve come from or what kind of day (or life) theyve had.

Federal Donuts began as an idea to inject fun and meaning into our professional lives. We found that meaning in getting to know the people who come into our shops every day. Now, Federal Donuts is a successful business and a respected brand. But most important, its a community: of five partners who didnt know each other that well when we began this journey; of our tremendous staff who have taken our vision further than we ever imagined; and of the guests who share a bit of themselves with us each day. Donuts changed our lives. And this book is a love letter to them, the people who make them, and the people who eat them. steven cook

on THE slippery slope

BOBBY: We were hanging out on 2nd Street outside my coffee shop and a restaurant Mike and Steve owned then, and Mike asked what I was up to. And I said, Im going down to look at this greasy pizza parlor. And he was like, Lets go.

STEVE: I was like, No fucking way.

So Mike went down without me and came back and said, Youve gotta see this.

BOBBY: I remember calling Mike a few weeks later, after he came home from Israel, and he said, Ive got a lot of things going on. I really dont know if were gonna be able to do anything right now. And I said, We wanna do donuts. And he said, Ill call you right back! And literally the next morning we all sat down to breakfast.