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This
morning
I popped into a new doughnut
shop in our home town - Tampa,
Florida, but this
wasn't just any doughnut shop - the Mini
Doughnut Factory was a dessert
experience unlike anything
I've seen before - and it was
created by none other than domain
industry veteran Patrick Ruddell and
his wife Zezura.
As
regular readers will remember,
Patrick was always making waves
- both figuratively with his
attention grabbing Chef Patrick
blog and literally by staging
the first
domain conferences ever held on a
cruise ship - DNCruise
1 in 2010 and DNCruise
2 in 2011.
You
may also recall that the serial
entrepreneur came out of the real
world real estate business. When
the real estate market crashed he
gravitated to online real estate - domains
- and had a nice run with them (and
continues to do so as time allows).
Then when real world real estate
rebounded he jumped back in to
take advantage of the new market
conditions and is once again
busy buying, fixing up and flipping
houses.
However,
that wasn't enough for
Patrick. Having gone through that
crash he decided this time he was
going to diversify before the
next downturn. After doing a lot of
research he determined a
doughnut shop would fit the bill -
it is an affordable treat that
everyone loves so they tend to
keep customers coming regardless of
the economic weather.
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Above:
Entrance to the Mini Doughnut
Factory (MDF)
on South Dale Mabry Highway in Tampa,
Florida.
Below:
MDF Founders Patrick & Zezura
Ruddell onboard DNCruise 1 - the first domain
conference held on a cruise ship
that they hosted in October 2010.
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Now
here is a very interesting part of
the story. I told you MDF was unlike
any doughnut shop I've ever seen -
and Patrick credits legendary domain
investor and Uniregistry Founder Frank
Schilling for providing
the idea that started him down a
path that led to a completely
re-imagined doughnut shop.
Patrick
had originally planned to serve
regular full-size doughnuts and
Frank happened to own a domain
name he wanted for the project.
Patrick didn't end up buying the
name but in the course of their
talks Frank told him he should look
into mini doughnuts instead
of regular ones as they were
becoming very popular in Canada
(where Frank hails from, though he
is now based on Grand Cayman).
Patrick looked into them and decided
that was the way to go - but he
added a major new twist to the
spartan mini doughnuts served north
of the border (often little more
that doughnut holes). He and Zezura
would make them with a wide variety
of fantastic toppings that no one
could resist. They opened the
shop November 15, 2015 (barely 10
weeks ago) and had an immediate
hit on their hands.
Above:
I went to the MDF late in the
morning on purpose, figuring the
early morning coffee and doughnut
rush would be over and Patrick,
Zexura and I would have plenty
of time to talk. I was shocked
to walk in and see the tables that
line the walls all full and a
long line at the cash
register (that never went away) with
Patrick behind it.
Below:
This shot of a box of freshly
made MDF doughnuts will explain
better than any words I can come up
with why people are
jamming the new Tampa shop every
hour it is open. No one has anything
like this and people took countless
boxes home with them in the hour I
was there.
Above:
(left to right): MDF team member
Lisa with co-owners Zezura
and Patrick Ruddell getting
boxes of mini-doughnuts ready for
customers to take home.
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Above:
These mini-donuts are decadently
rich so I split an order
of six with fellow domainer Dimitar
Tashev (from SuperDomains.eu)
who went to MDF with me (a
stop we made en route to a
previously scheduled
luncheon today).
At
right: Dimitar digs in!
He is from Bulgaria
but went to design school in
Tampa so he was back here to
see old friends and visit me
after we had met for the
first time at NamesCon
in Las Vegas earlier
this month. Dimitar agreed
with me that the mini-donuts
were out of this world and
nothing like he has seen
anywhere else in his
frequent travels.
Below:
MDF has a full and varied
menu - making it a
quandary for this customer
to decide which of the dozens
of intriguing
possibilities she should
choose - they all
look so good! |
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The
MDF menu has 14 different
"favorite" toppings
at the top but customers can
jump off from there and create
any combination they
want, making the options
essentially unlimited.
There is also a wide variety
of coffee and drinks and for
those who just can't get
enough of that doughnut flavor
there is even a doughnut
milk shake!
Above:
Things were so busy at the Mini
Doughnut Factory this
morning this selfie snapped by
Dimitar was the only shot we
had a chance to get of us with
Patrick and Zezura
before they had to get back
to their battle stations.
That's a good problem
to have!
Below:
It is clear to me that there
are blue skies ahead
for MDF. Local mainstream
reporters have been all
over the new business (check
out this video
from the Tampa Bay
Business Journal)
which is driving even more
traffic through their doors.
It is also clear this is a
very scalable model
that could result in the MDF
brand eventually reaching from
shore to shore. Zezura told me
she has never worked so
hard in her life (after
just watching her for an hour I
was exhausted!). However, from
what I saw today that hard
work is going to pay off in a very
big way.
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