The Interview of the Year – no it’s not John Travolta or Matt Cain

Today on the blog we are interviewing- Dance Party Leader, Donut Slinger, woman with the Best Laugh in all of South Seattle – Davie Hay!

When you were growing up- did you think you’d be running (with your sister) King Donuts?  Ha! Growing up, I’ll be honest, I hated this shop! I NEVER thought I’d see the day that I would be taking over the business, much less loving it.

How many donuts to you sell on a normal day?  On an average day, I think we sell about 300-400 donuts a day.

What are the busiest donut selling day(s) of the yea?  Busiest selling days are of course, National Donut Day (June 1st) and Fridays tend to be good days for us, many people like to end the week by sharing donuts with their coworkers eating donuts.

How many types of donuts do you sell?  We sell about 15 different types of donuts. The most popular donut would have to be our Maple Bar, but my personal favorite is the Apple Fritter.

    
Top 5 lessons you’ve learned from the donut shop?

1. Develping a strong work ethic.

2. Learning about the different types of people that exist in our society.

3. I have learned to have tremendous patience. Sometimes you deal with the most discouraging folks at times.

4. Learning to manage my money at a young age is a perk.

5. Respect. Being at the shop has taught me to be respectful to people from all walks of life.  It doesn’t matter if they’re a drug addict, drunk, or millionaire. I treat everyone the same, till they give me a reason not to do so. 🙂

Slinging Donuts, Hustling and Rick James!

When my parents ran the store, I remember them always hustling.   Even though her English wasn’t the greatest, she sure was a sales woman. “Can I get a glaze donuts?” Her response would always be, “you want 6 or a dozen?” Seemed like there was no such thing as purchasing 1 donut from King Donuts.

You could never buy ONE donut from these two!

When I was a kid and my parents were running the business, Rainier Beach was a tough place, some called it a mini Compton. The crackheads,  oh my, these fools were everywhere. Most people were afraid of them, but I always looked forward to seeing them. It was free entertainment in my mind. Seeing a crack head-in my opinion is like going to Magic Mountain. Watching all the random stuff and goings-on was one of my favorite things about growing up in King Donuts.  I remember when I was 11 years old, I would play music at the shop door and  have a dance party- right there, just me and a bunch of crack heads dancing.  I guess they love themselves some Rick James.

Thrills and Chills and Lost Money

Seeing naked customers seems to be a trend here at King Donuts, the more I reminisce about stories that I have from here. I remember the time when this older man about in his mid 80’s was standing at my counter pouring cream and sugar in this coffee. I recall him having a big puffy jacket and a wool hat on and he was complaining about how freezing he was. I couldn’t understand how he was freezing. At this point, he still hadn’t paid for his donut and coffee. So then he started patting himself looking for money that he said he had, but couldn’t find it. So I had just happen to walk to the other side of the counter and looked over and saw that the man was standing in his tighty whities cause his pants had fallen off him! I solved the mystery of the chills and lost money!! That image was unpleasantly scared into my head for life!!

Bed of Flour

Growing up in King Donuts could never be compared to the way my own peers grew up. I remember being a toddler and I wasn’t quite in kindergarten at so my parents couldn’t drop me off anywhere LOL. So they use to bring me to the shop in the middle of the night as it was TIME TO MAKE THE DONUTS  aka 2am and I’d sleep on top of towers of flour in the backroom. And then when the shop would open, I would be up at the time and it seemed like the “regulars,” of King Donuts became my baby sitters. In fact I was so damn popular that I had multiple baby sitters and had multiple customers wiping my ass according to my parents. To this day now, at 24, I still have folks that come in here saying, ” I use to wipe your ass.”