How a local doughnut business went viral

Amanda Eubanks, Dave Hancock and Brian Eubanks, 12, started DG Doughnuts just three months ago. They never expected it to get so big, so fast. 

When Lakefront Farmer’s Market at Summerport Village organizer Shanny Rios started the market, she asked Amanda, who formerly owned Amanda’s Cakery on Plant Street in Winter Garden, to bring sweets. Because the threesome loves doughnuts so much, they decided to bring doughnuts and see what happened. 

“We know we wanted a doughnut shop, but we just didn’t know it was going to take off that fast,” Amanda Eubanks said.

The doughnuts were such a hit at the market that they often would sell out an hour after the market opened, so Amanda created the business’s Facebook page. And people started talking. 

The business got rave after rave on the Winter Garden Rants, Raves and Reviews group.

“These are DELICIOUS,” customers raved on Facebook. “I don’t know how we’ll go back to other doughnuts now.”

 Although the business is based out of a Longwood kitchen and delivers to the Greater Orlando area, much of the business has come from eager customers in West Orange. On Facebook, the page went from 100 to 1,000 likes in a matter of two weeks. 

The growth was exciting for Amanda Eubanks and Dave Hancock, but because they both worked at Four Rivers, they wanted to make sure they could keep up with it. 

“I’m not complaining,” Dave Hancock said. “But we tried to slow it down a little bit. … It was going so full-blown that we didn’t want to make anybody mad.”

To meet demand, they purchased better equipment — a bigger mixer and fryer. They enlisted some family to help with deliveries. They also allowed people to preorder doughnuts before the Sunday Summerport market to ensure that doughnut lovers could get their goods without fear that the stand would sell out. 

Now, both Amanda Eubanks and Hancock have left their jobs to work at DG Doughnuts full time. 

WHY SO GOOD?

DG Doughnuts always is creating new flavors, working to keep people coming back. They experiment with ideas such as Rocky Road, Banana Cream Pie, Key Lime Pie and Peanut Butter and Jelly. 

“Some stuff we didn’t think was famous at first, but then at the next market, people will be asking for it,” Brian Eubanks said. “It’s hard to predict.”

DG Doughnuts is known for thick, full doughnuts with interesting flavors and decoration. Many of the ideas for doughnut decorating come from Amanda Eubanks’s background in cake decoration. But a lot of it is curiosity and experimenting with different flavors. 

When designing some of the more ornate flavors, such as Rocky Road, Dave Hancock will consider texture. 

“If you have a smooth glaze doughnut, I try to add some texture to it by adding a cookie or something that’s crumbly on the top, and then I go with an opposite color contrast so it pops out,” he said. 

Contact Jennifer Nesslar at [email protected].