Hurts Donut Co. relocates to larger space

Hurts Donut Co. owners Tim and Kas Clegg relocated the downtown donut shop June 26 to 320 Park Central West.

“We literally locked the doors at one space and opened the doors on the new space at the exact same time,” Tim Clegg said, adding the 20 people waiting in line at the new location doubled to 40 within a five-minute period of its 6 p.m. opening. “I think we finally were over our long line somewhere around 3 a.m. or 3:30 a.m. on Saturday morning  – it was incredible.”

Clegg said the company signed a three-year lease for the 3,000-square-foot space with Murray Lofts LLC for undisclosed terms. He added the shop is a little more than double that of Hurt’s previous home at 301 Park Central West, where it opened in November 2013. The new location has seating for 150 customers, up from 34.

“In the donut business, the trend is your sales dip 20 to 30 percent in the summertime months, and we’ve actually doubled our sales over the same weekend last year,” Clegg said, declining to disclose the weekend’s revenues. He estimated about $35,000 worth of signage and improvements were completed in the transition.

Clegg said the company plans to eventually add 15 part-time employees to the current staff of 27, with four new hires undergoing training this week. In the meantime, cleaning and renovations continue to turn the original Hurts location into an as of yet unnamed hot dog shop. Kas Clegg previously told Springfield Business Journal that “Weiners” was a tentative name for the establishment.

“We haven’t decided 100 percent on the name, but it’s a work in progress,” Tim Clegg said. “We’re in menu-building and name and branding development right now, but we’re not quite there yet.”

Clegg said although an opening date has not been set, he expects Hurts’ first franchise store to open in around two weeks in Wichita, Kan. Franchise fees are $25,000 per store, plus 7 percent royalties of gross sales, according to SBJ archives.[[In-content Ad]]