DOUGHNUTS AND A DREAM
Jordan’s Donuts comes with gourmet glazes
Kids often turn a deaf ear to their parents.
But Jordan Gracie listened whenever her father, Bobby, groused after a particularly rough or slow day at Roo Tees, the screen printing and embroidery business he owned in Moon.
“He’d be like, ‘ Doughnuts. We should sell doughnuts. Everyone loves doughnuts,’” the 12- year- old recalled.
So one day in 2017, she told her father he should actually do it. Make the deep- fried pastries and sell them with all different kinds of icing and glazes and gourmet toppings.
An only child, Jordan was big into baking at the time. Even if she hadn’t been, she
knew her father’s words rang true. Everyone really does like doughnuts, she says — all the more so when they’re small, droolworthy and relatively inexpensive.
Her dad agreed, and so the middle schooler and her mother, Cloressa, spent the better part of the following year fine - tuning the family’s homemade icing recipe that would serve as their doughnuts’ canvas. They also worked on embellishing a packaged cake doughnut mix to create pastries that were as light as they were airy. Mr. Gracie, meanwhile, came up with a business plan for the shop they’d eventually open in October 2017 inside his existing business on Moon Clinton Road.
In between, the family visited different doughnut shops across the region to see what was popular. If they were going to make a splash, Jordan’s Donuts, as the shop was christened, had to rise above the competition.
“We wanted to see what we liked and didn’t like,” explained Jordan, who will be a seventh- grade dance major when she goes back to Lincoln Park Performing Arts
Charter School in Midland at the end of the month.
Initially, they cooked their doughnuts in Fox’s Pizza on Stuebenville Pike and transported them to the store. When Mr. Gracie moved his screen printing business to a former antique shop on Fifth Avenue in Coraopolis in 2018, the doughnut shop came with it and they were able to start frying the doughnuts on site.
The time was ripe for a mom- and- pop shop when it opened that March.
Located across the street from the former Coraopolis municipal building, the store joins a string of foodand drink- related businesses that have sprung up along the borough’s main drag over the last few years, breathing new life into the business district. Cobblehaus Brewing Co. and the limoncello distillery Bella Bambini Cellos, which both opened in 2017, are less than a block away and Anchor & Anvil Coffee Bar also is just up the street. Janie’s Homemade Hard Ice Cream, at 1020 Fifth Ave., had its grand opening on June 29. One street over on Fourth Ave., La Poblanita is dishing up some of the region’s best street tacos at a taqueria outside of its Mexican grocery store and butchery.
What makes the familyrun operation’s mini doughnuts special, Jordan said, is that each is made fresh to order from more than 30 flavors.
The glazed and iced cake doughnuts run the gamut from traditional ( chocolate, strawberry and vanilla) to what can only be described as far out. Along with Red Bull, sangria, Jamaican rum and root beer, the glazes come in cotton candy and Skittles flavors. Iced doughnuts are crafted to taste like chicken and waffles, Swedish fish, thin mint and gummi bears, among others. Toppings include glitter, chocolate and colored sprinkles, graham cracker crumbs, crumbled bacon and various sanding sugars and drizzles.
“And I taste everything beforehand to make sure it’s just right,” Jordan said.
“She has a vision of what every flavor should be,” said Mr. Gracie, recalling how she insisted that the cotton candy glaze wasn’t blue enough during the testing phase.
The shop just introduced a churro doughnut with a sugar cane glaze and cinnamon powdered sugar that’s immensely popular.
In designing the shop, Mr. Gracie went for a family feel. There’s a picture of his grandfather, Anthony Bondi, who worked as a custodian at the former Coraopolis High School, by the front door.
The doughnuts cost $ 10 per dozen and $ 5 for six; a party pack of 48 mini doughnuts is $ 38. All are made to order. They can pre- ordered at www. two3company. com/ donuts, and delivery is available through Doordash.
Local customer Diana Hightower stopped by on a recent Friday for a halfdozen that included the store’s best- selling tiramisu and salted caramel doughnuts. And yes, she was going to eat them all herself.
“They’re delicious, and the glazes and icings are just so interesting,” she said, “It’s one of my favorite stops when I come downtown.”
Others have traveled all the way from Monroeville, said Mrs. Gracie, adding that they’re often surprised to find the icings and glazes actually taste like their descriptions. They have some famous fans, too, namely Paul Wahlberg of Wahlburgers fame, who declared the doughnuts “the best” when Jordan gifted him a dozen at a recent popup at The Mall at Robinson.
Now that the doughnut shop has a steady stream of customers, Jordan has launched a charitable arm of the business. It’s called Donuts in a Jar, and is exactly that — 16- ounce jars filled with doughnut bits and icing that can be refrigerated for up to two weeks. Organizations receive $ 5 for every $ 10 jar sold, and a portion of the proceeds will go toward The Jordance Foundation, which Jordan is in the process of forming.
Between her school and dance schedule, Jordan admits she can’t spend as much time at the store as she’d like and is mostly there on weekends.
“But I come as often as I can because I want to be involved,” she said. And she gets to meet so many fun people.