Co-owners Megan Scaddan and Wade Smith outside the new Doughnotts shop in Cheapside, Nottingham city centre(Image: Joseph Raynor/ Reach PLC)

Doughnotts' owners 'really happy' with new Nottingham store - with 'interesting' twist for visitors

by · NottinghamshireLive

Next year will mark the company's 10th anniversary

Doughnotts - as the name suggests - is the Nottingham company renowned for its doughnuts. But as it enters a fresh chapter at its new city centre shop, there's much more for sweet-toothed fans to get stuck into. To 'keep it interesting' there's cookies, blondies and brownies on sale too at the latest store in Cheapside, at the side of the Council House.

It's the third city centre site for founders Wade Smith and Megan Scaddan, which they say will be the "forever" store. Next year will mark the 10th anniversary of the duo's first attempt at doughnut making in a wok at home before opening their debut shop in Long Row a few months later. In 2019, Doughnotts moved to premises in King Street, where it remained until recently.

Wade said: "This is it - it's cheaper and a better location, we're just happy with it. We've always had stores we've just had to just get, We've not had anything we've really wanted. We had the downstairs one but there was no disabled access and then we got the second one on King Street which was great - you had disabled access but then you had to go upstairs to sit down. But this is all on one level, it just suits us."

The new shop has seating for 14 people, including six stools by the window with electric sockets so customers can get a sugar fix while working on a laptop - or take the chance for a spot of people watching. Old favourites such as Red Velvet, Homer and Cookies & Dream are on sale, along with the comforting flavours of sticky toffee pudding and jam roly poly and custard.

Wade said: "We've reduced our menu a lot because we were getting to the point where we were having 20 flavours of doughnuts a day. We would rather do fewer flavours but really good. It's like when you go to a really nice restaurant, it's three mains, three starters, three desserts."

Priced £3.75 for standard and £4.25 for premium or any six for £20, the prices reflect the size of the doughnuts, which are much bigger than typical high street brands. "If we could make and sell them for cheaper we would. Business should be fair, everyone should win out of it. The customer should get good value for money and we think the customer does get good value for money," said Wade.

"People only see what's on it but they don't see the three or four hours that actually go into making the doughnut. Being a small business we used to have to charge for our boxes but we've signed a better deal with our packaging supplier which has brought the price down. We are locked in with them for the next five years. It means we don't have to charge the customer for the box."

Times might be hard but the company had its best ever September. At one point it had ten shops across the Midlands but has now scaled back to six including sites in West Bridgford, Beeston and East and West Midlands Designer Outlets. An average of 20,000 doughnuts, all hand-decorated, are made at its factory on Queens Drive Industrial Estate every week.

"It's really hard. The business got to a point where we had a lot of people in our ear saying 'open here, open here' and you think OK we'll do it and then you end up getting in a bit of a mess. I don't know of any businesses who have put their foot in that pond and pulled back and have been able to rebuild it again but that's what we're doing."

The new lines on sale are part of Wade's Bakes. They include pumpkin spice blondies, chocolate brownies and red velvet cookies. "Our blondies are massive. We are not here to sell you something that's tiny. We are always going to have doughnuts but we're branching out into all this stuff," added Wade.

Co-founder Megan said: "It's really good. It's almost ten years next year since we started it. It was 2015 when since we started making them from the kitchen at home.

"It's crazy. Opening shops is easy now because we have done it so many times. We love it, it's the part we enjoy, obviously the business side is stressful, it's hard with the way things are at the moment with everything going up. But this is what makes it rewarding. It's enjoyable to see this and customers coming in and enjoying the products. We're doing alright, it's really, really good.

"We want it to be a one-stop shop where you can come in and get cookies, brownies and doughnuts and keep it interesting. People say to us have you tried this flavour yet? We have pretty much made every flavour in doughnuts we possibly could so we need to start making other things."

The 9am opening on Friday November 8 didn't attract the crazily long queues as King Street when fans camped out from 6.15am. But there were a few eager customers.

First in line was Kacey Watkins, an emergency call taker for East Midlands Ambulance Service. She said: "I live literally around the corner. The variety of doughnuts is so good. The Cookie Monster is my favourite. The shop looks nice, it's much lighter than the other one because that was kind of hidden."

Inside the new Doughnotts shop(Image: Joseph Raynor/ Reach PLC)
Finally Doughnotts has the ideal shop(Image: Joseph Raynor/ Reach PLC)
The new shop has seating for 14 people(Image: Joseph Raynor/ Reach PLC)
The counter with an array of doughnuts, cookies, brownies and blondies(Image: Joseph Raynor/ Reach PLC)
Biscoff doughnuts(Image: Joseph Raynor/ Reach PLC)