Gibson’s Donuts applies for permit to expand kitchen
The popular Gibson’s Donuts is expanding to keep from running out of those apple fritters, bacon and red velvet doughnuts on “crazy’’ Friday and Saturday mornings when the customer line stretches over to the Subway sandwich shop.
“We can’t keep up with supply and demand,’’ general manager Britton DeWeese said Thursday morning.
The venerable East Memphis doughnut shop at 760 Mount Moriah this week applied for a building permit to expand the kitchen.
The document states the construction will cost $55,856.
The kitchen will be enlarged 10 feet back. Customers will hardly be able to see the new space.
The only thing they should notice is that none of the 56 varieties of doughnuts has run out by 9:30 or 10 a.m., DeWeese said.
The expansion does not necessarily mean Gibson’s will start making much more than the 12,000 doughnuts it cooks on average every morning.
The investment is all about timing. There’s no space to store enough doughnuts for the crush of customers who come, especially on weekend mornings.
So certain varieties of doughnuts empty out too early, and the six cooks in the back can’t make replacements fast enough, DeWeese said. With the expansion, Gibson’s will have space for more racks of backup doughnuts.
“We only need it on Fridays and Saturdays,’’ he said. “Monday through Thursdays, we’re fine.’’
The expansion won’t speed up the lines. But when customers have waited patiently 20 minutes for an apple fritter, they can be more confident it’ll be there for them.
No less a food czar than Alton Brown, host of Food Network’s “Good Eats’’ as well as “Iron Chef America,’’ has called Gibson’s doughnut “the best yeast doughnut I’ve ever had in my life — period.’’