Plaza Donuts Marks 50 Years at Belmont Avenue Store
LIBERTY TOWNSHIP, Ohio -- Think of the Belmont Avenue Plaza Donuts as Cheers -- minus the beer.
Seating themselves at the long counters much like the barflies who patronized Sam Malone’s Boston bar on the long-running NBC sitcom, people come to what Michael Froomkin, president of the Plaza Donuts chain, calls the “donut shop Cheers. They talk, they kibbutz, they have some arguments,” he says. “It gets really loud sometimes but they have a good time and they drink the coffee and [eat] the donuts.”
“I call it Cheers,” affirmed Judy Bresko, a counter clerk at the Belmont Avenue store for 16 years. “They’re all regulars.”
Froomkin’s father and uncle opened their first Plaza Donuts stores in the Akron area 53 years ago. Nov. 22 marks the 50th anniversary of the Belmont Avenue location, now the flagship store. “We do the most business here. We also do all the baking here for all our other stores” as well as other retail outlets that it distributes to, Froomkin said.
“We’ve always had some wholesale accounts but about 10 years ago we expanded into it and it’s doing well,” he added. “It accounts for a good part of our business.” Retail locations Plaza Donuts distributes to include truck stops, hospitals and convenience stores.
Once up to 10 locations, the chain has downsized to three due to competition, Froomkin says.
The Belmont Avenue store is marking the half-century anniversary Nov. 22 at its three locations -- Liberty, Route 224 in Boardman and the Western Reserve Transit Authority bus station in downtown Youngstown -- with half off a dozen donuts or half off a cup of coffee and a donut.
Plaza Donuts offers 30 to 35 different varieties of donuts on a daily basis, plus “other varieties that we make here,” he said. The most popular is the crème stick. Coffee, of course, is popular as well.
Although Plaza Donuts doesn’t carry the variety of flavored coffees that many of its competitors offer, it custom blends its brew. “We do the beans every time we make a fresh pot,” Froomkin said. “You can smell it and it’s fresh coffee. People like that.”
The coffee and freshly made donuts, he observed, are what keep Plaza Donuts competitive. “We just want to concentrate on what we do best,” Froomkin said.
The local chain also has Ohio Lottery scratch-off and online games -- Keno most recently -- which Froomkin said is “a big part of our business.”
Other recent additions include a drive-thru window installed about eight years ago, which makes stopping by more convenient for customers particularly in inclement weather, and free wireless access.
The store maintains a steady flow of customers. More than a dozen patrons were picking up donuts or sitting at the counters during a midmorning visit. Early in the day, as would be expected, is busy, although afternoon traffic has picked up in recent years due to the presence of Walmart at the Liberty Plaza, Froomkin said. The crowd ranges from college-age students to retirees.
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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