Sweet Coloradough, now open three days a week, strives to make great doughnuts and doesn’t apologize for the cost

Tim Harty, The Business Times

Sweet Coloradough’s doughnuts are hand-crafted. Nothing is automated.

And it isn’t a minimum-wage shop. Employees are paid at least $25 per hour, and with that compensation comes an expectation of quality and customer service.

So, when co-owner Aaron Badolato talks about the cost of Sweet Coloradough’s doughnuts, he says they are $2 to $4 per doughnut (with discounts of 10 percent per half-dozen or 20 percent per dozen), and he doesn’t apologize.

“It’s never been about how to make a doughnut less expensive,” he said. “It’s always been a ‘strive to make it as good as possible’ and then charge a price where we can still stay in business.”

So, customers should understand that about Sweet Coloradough when they walk in the doors of its Grand Junction location, which opened in November at 1410 North Ave., the former home of a Daylight Donuts shop.

Initially Sweet Coloradough was open two days per week (Tuesday and Wednesday), and on Feb. 1 it became three days per week by adding Saturdays.

The Grand Junction doughnut shop is one of four Sweet Coloradough stores owned by Badolato’s family (wife Anne, daughters Lilli and Ari), with Glenwood Springs being home to the original one since 2013.

Badolato said Grand Junction has “always been a place that we wanted to grow the business. It’s a beautiful part of the world, and I think that the demand is here, and the great people of Grand Junction deserve great doughnuts.”

Badolato said he had been a financial planner in Denver, then moved to Glenwood Springs to do the same kind of work, but he encountered an unanticipated dilemma: “When I moved to Glenwood, I couldn’t find a sandwich that I liked. I couldn’t find a doughnut I liked.”

He said he tried to persuade others to open a doughnut shop or deli, and he got no takers. So, it fell to him to provide what he wanted in Glenwood Springs, where the Sweet Coloradough store sells doughnuts and sandwiches.

“It’s just everything that I wanted. And then it turns out other people wanted it, too,” Badolato said.

The Grand Junction shop has breakfast burritos in addition to doughnuts, and Badolato said more menu options are likely to come later this year.

Before that happens, the Grand Junction store must master the doughnut production. That’s one of the reasons he didn’t opt to open the store six days per week from the start.

“Right now, our biggest focus is how to make enough doughnuts to be open each day,” Badolato said. “That’s the big seller, and then you get some breakfast burritos as well, and then start figuring out how to bring in the other savory (menu items). As soon as we can meet the demand and quality at the doughnut level, we’ll expand.”

But he won’t rush it. Badolato acknowledged Sweet Coloradough could be open every day right now, but it’s still figuring out how many doughnuts it needs to make to be open until 3 p.m.

On Saturday, Feb. 1, Sweet Coloradough made 9,000 doughnuts, and when the shop closed at 3:30 p.m., 14 doughnuts remained and were donated to a food bank.

“It’s one thing to be open every day. It’s another thing to be open with enough product,” he said. “Satisfying the people that do come in later in the day, that’s the goal now. I want everyone to have a doughnut until four in the afternoon or six in the evening, as opposed to you come at 8:30 a.m. and there’s 100 doughnuts left.

“We’re striving to provide enough quantity and quality to meet the demand. One of the saddest things we face is, you know, that family of six, getting out of their car and coming to the door and it’s closed. We understand that and are working our best to meet that, but I think getting those hours out there – Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, and then we’ll probably add ideally Friday down the road – I think that takes care of what I need.”

All the while, the quality of the doughnuts must not suffer. That’s nonnegotiable.

“I would never eat a grocery store doughnut, because I don’t like it,” Badolato said. “Something that I pride myself on is I’ll only serve it to you if I’m gonna eat it. So, the idea that we’re gonna try to figure out how to make it cheaper just would never happen. I think the only thing we’ll try to do is continue to make it better. And hopefully we can get there.

“And if somebody’s looking for the cheapest thing, that’ll never be us.”

MORE ABOUT SWEET COLORADOUGH

Calculating the Cost

With doughnuts priced at $2 to $4 per doughnut, Sweet Coloradough co-owner Aaron Badolato knows that’s spendy. He also believes his doughnuts are worth every cent, because he did the math.

“Most of our four-dollar doughnuts usually cost about $2.80 to make,” he said. “So, after the 20 percent off (for a dozen doughnuts), everything’s roughly 20-to-35-cents-a-doughnut profit.

“It’s funny. I think a lot of people will see a four-dollar doughnut, and they’ll say, ‘Four dollars for a doughnut?’ But there’s no thought of how much it costs to make a four-dollar doughnut. Everyone, I think, assumes it’s a dollar to make a doughnut.”

Badolato said the largest cost is labor, followed by the ingredients.

“The cost of doing business now is probably seven times higher than it was 10 years ago,” Badolato said. “The cost structure, it’s always wild. It’s not how much money you make, it’s how much you get to keep. I think if I charge lower prices, then we’re out of business, it’s not good for anybody, right?”

He added Sweet Coloradough pays its employees a livable wage, and that’s “something we pride ourselves on. … I would say with that comes an expectation of quality and expectation of great service. One of our main differentiators, I think, is providing a service level that’s in line with the quality of food. Great experiences with even better food.”

Pursuing Perfection

Badolato describes Sweet Coloradough’s doughnuts as “a hand-crafted, artisanal doughnut that is a labor of love. Nothing we do is automated or expedited to sacrifice quality.”

With the Glenwood Springs store open more than a decade, the recipes and processes are proven. But it’s never perfect, he said.

“It’s never, ‘Oh, we figured out how to make them great,’” he said. “It’s just every day it’s continuing that pursuit of greatness, but I don’t think it would be anything we would ever be able to tame, if you will. It’s just a constant strive for greatness that I don’t think could ever be achieved, but I think we’re on the right track.”

Other Locations, Possibly More

With the opening of Sweet Coloradough in Grand Junction, the Badolato family owns four locations. The others are in Glenwood Springs, Rifle and Eagle.

There were Sweet Coloradoughs in Carbondale, Snowmass and Aspen, but each was sold in recent years.

Badolato said he would like to develop a franchise model, perhaps by the end of this year, and have the ability to be in more places with different owners. He said he’d love to see Sweet Coloradough in Fruita and Palisade.

“I can only do so much, so try to spread the love through other people,” he said.

Exceeding Expectations

Sweet Coloradough is doing well in its infancy in Grand Junction.

“I would say better than we expected, and we had a high expectation,” Badolato said. “So it’s been phenomenal, great support from the community and definitely making us feel at home.”

Military Discount

Veterans and active military members get 10 percent off their doughnut purchase and a free cup of coffee.