‘Happy Donut’ plans new Clinton opening
The former operators of Master Donut in Clinton plan to open the new Happy Donut shop in the former BK Kitchen Mongolian Grill location at 1115 N. Charles G. Seivers Blvd., next to The UPS Store, sometime this month. (photo:G. Chambers Williams III )
They have already hung up a temporary banner above the building’s front calling the new shop “Happy Donut,” and a look inside through the front glass shows what’s apparently a front counter already in place for the business.
There is a possible hitch in those plans, however. Clinton’s Codes Enforcement Department hung a notice on the front door of the shop last week telling the owners that they still need to obtain sign and occupancy permits from the city before they can open.
City Building Official Matthew Widner said Monday that he still had not heard from the business owners, and that the city would not allow them to operate until the permits were obtained and the city had completed an inspection before occupancy.
“We just need to do a life and environmental safety review,” Widner said. “It will be fairly easy. We’re all for new businesses in Clinton.
Those involved with the new shop are part of the same family who operated Master Donuts in Clinton a few blocks south of there on Seivers Boulevard for more than a decade, according to Skip Nickle, owner of the UPS Store.
That same family also operated the BK Kitchen Mongolian Grill in the location that will now house Happy Donut, Nickle said.
After several visits to the site, The Courier News has not yet found anyone in the shop, and has relied on information provided by Nickle as to who is involved and when the doughnut shop might open.
Neighbors at the new location, including the UPS Store, said they have seen the Master Donuts owners moving equipment into the building, which most recently housed Robie’s Grill, a soul-food restaurant.
The popular doughnut shop had been in business for more than 11 years in another strip shopping center at 914 N. Charles G. Seivers Blvd. It closed its doors at the end of the day on Aug. 1, supposedly temporarily while it remodeled the space.
But a few days later, the shop’s owners told Carla Evans, who manages the property owned by her mother at that location, that they were closing the business permanently.
On a typical day, Master Donuts made up to 40 dozen doughnuts, along with other baked items such as apple fritters, cinnamon rolls, bear claws, bagels, biscuits and croissants, some of them used in other breakfast-style foods, such as sausage, egg and cheese biscuits and croissants.