Treats don't get much better than the fresh, hot golden doughnuts drenched in sugary glaze.
	[Times photo: Patty Yablonski]

By MIMI RICH
© St. Petersburg Times
published April 15, 2002

[Times photo: Doug Clifford]

Krispy Kreme employees pack “Hot Now” doughnuts moments before the Clearwater store’s 5 a.m. opening on March 5.

Not the rings of wedded bliss, not the coveted merry-go-round prize. Rings that taste good as gold. Rings of dough cooked in hot oil and smothered with a sugary blanket as they pass under a glaze waterfall. Rings so good that people don't just eat them, they wear their likeness on boxers, T-shirts and paper sailor hats. So delicious more than 100 people would stand in line at 5 a.m. just to get some of the first sweet treasures dispensed from the Tampa Bay area's newest Krispy Kreme store.

Krispy Kreme doughnuts have satisfied the sugar urges of millions since 1937, when the first Krispy Kreme doughnut shop opened in Winston-Salem, N.C. Even then customers, their mouths watering, would line up outside just to get a look, and of course a taste, of the talk of the town.

What makes these doughnuts so popular?

Have you tasted one?

Tom Paulter, assistant manager of the new Clearwater Krispy Kreme, which opened in March, says that every customer who enters the door has an "expectation" that needs to be satisfied. The first-timer has expectations based on what he's heard about Krispy Kreme. The old-timers, those who return day after day, expect the same pleasurable experience as the first time they bit into a Krispy Kreme "Hot Now" glazed doughnut.

Between the hours of 6 and 11 a.m. and 6 and 11 p.m. Krispy Kreme shops light up the "Hot Now" sign that lures doughnut cravers through the door.

Once inside, they stand hypnotized at the "doughnut theater."

What people watch, Paulter explains, is the birth of a Krispy Kreme doughnut. The doughnut maker, officially called "the 270," is operated by a baker who overseas each circle of dough that is produced. The 270 is aptly named because it can produce up to 270 dozen doughnuts an hour! What would Homer Simpson say?

After a doughnut completes its voyage through the 270 and is coated with the oozy sugar glaze, it is lifted directly from the conveyer into a flat box for the customer. Krispy Kreme puts as much thought into the presentation of its doughnuts as a chef might do for her creation at a five-star restaurant, Paulter says. "When a customer gets home and opens the box it should look like, wow!

"And make you drool."

Celebrities drooling over Krispy Kremes never hurts, of course. They've been mentioned in the television series Will & Grace, and Katie Couric hailed them on the Today show while covering the Olympics in Salt Lake City. The company didn't pay for those mentions, but Paulter says he wouldn't be surprised if the local Krispy Kreme shop delivered some "Hot Now" doughnuts to the sets of the shows.

About those people who climbed out of bed to greet the first doughnuts out of the new shop's 270 . . . well, it's fine to eat a cold doughnut. But it's sheer heaven to have a hot, sugary Krispy Kreme melt in your mouth.

-- Mimi Rich, 11, is in the sixth grade at Safety Harbor Middle School.

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