43
Essential ingredients of Plaza Donuts will stay the same
LIBERTY
At some point on just about any day, you can find Darlene Schober and Heidi Seals sitting at one of Plaza Donuts’ signature yellow coffee counters.
The mother and daughter, both from Liberty, have been coming to the Belmont Avenue shop almost daily for the past decade.
They like to get a cup of coffee – decaf for Schober, regular for Seals – and they love the doughnuts, from cream sticks to glazed to sour scream. But what really keeps them coming back is the atmosphere.
“It’s like a family here,” said Schober.
“It’s like that TV show, ‘Cheers,’” agreed Seals. “Everybody knows your name.”
Amy Spencer, a lifelong Mahoning Valley resident, had been familiar with Plaza Donuts before she and her husband purchased the business earlier this year, but it wasn’t until she started running the stores that she realized just how much locals love the 55-year-old doughnut shop.
When word got out she was the new owner, she was inundated with messages and customers wishing her well and offering suggestions.
“It’s nice to have so many people who are invested in the success,” she said. “I feel like the customers are invested in the idea of Plaza Donuts staying here and being here for years to come.”
Spencer took over operations of Plaza Donuts at the beginning of September. It marked a transition for the business, which had been in the Froomkin family since the early 1960s.
Originally started in the Akron area, brothers Berkeley and Irv Froomkin brought Plaza Donuts to Belmont Avenue in 1963. At its peak, Plaza had about 10 locations, but those were eventually pared down to three due to the economic challenges the Valley faced in the 1970s and 1980s.
Cousins Howard and Michael Froomkin earlier this year announced their plans to retire and put the business up for sale.
Today, there are shops on Belmont Avenue, on U.S. Route 224 in Boardman and in the Western Reserve Transit Authority building in downtown Youngstown.
The new owners hope to one day reopen in local communities that are craving the sweet treats. Spencer said she’s gotten many comments from people in Niles and Girard asking her to expand to those areas.
Adding new locations is just one of numerous changes the new owners – who also own two Tangier Express restaurants in the Valley – have planned.
To start with, they have been bringing back some popular discontinued doughnuts, such as sour cream, and trying out some new recipes. Right now, the shop is making pumpkin doughnuts. Others are under experimentation, such as a jelly doughnut-cream stick combination.
Instrumental in bringing these sweet creations to life is baker Leo Williford.
On a late morning earlier last week, he started his day by taking stock of all the upcoming orders. He then started on his first batch, the faint scent of pumpkin wafting from the industrial-size mixer in the Belmont Avenue store’s kitchen.
Each day, the baking staff prepares upward of 200 dozen doughnuts from this kitchen. Some doughnuts stock the three stores, while others fill wholesale orders.
Spencer also plans to expand Plaza’s drink line to add iced coffee and tea options.
“And most important, we want to reopen on Sundays,” she said. She hopes to make that happen sometime this month.
The owners would also like to eventually offer delivery services to downtown businesses and create online ordering.
Some updates to the Belmont Avenue store’s look also are planned, but Spencer said customers will still recognize the shop.
“I don’t think you can call it a Plaza Donuts if you don’t have a coffee bar,” she said.
Some things will change, but the essential ingredients will remain.