Co-owners Jessica Baker, left, and Jeannie Burks pose for a photo inside The Sassy Donut. Co. on Thursday in Greenwood.
Noah Crenshaw | Daily Journal
A new Greenwood donut shop promises to give customers great treats and an uplifting environment.
The Sassy Donut Co., located along North Emerson Avenue near County Line Road, has been in business for five months, offering area residents and visitors a variety of fresh donut options from their specialty bakery. The bakery is a small, family-owned business owned by Jessica Baker and her mother, Jeannie Burks.
The Sassy Donut Co. offers a wide variety of donut types, options and flavors. They have traditional styles, like ring donuts and cake donuts, along with Bismarks, Baker said.
They also have Long Johns Honeymooners, a less common type of donut that is similar to a Bismark, she said.
“It’s a ring, and you leave the doughnut hole in the center,” Baker said. “You fry it, and then when it’s done, you push the center down, put a filling in it and decorate it. We haven’t really seen that one anywhere in the area.”
Baker and Burks have also come with their own bakery items, like the Sassy Savory Square, will are still being critiqued. This item is made with croissant dough and is filled with things like eggs, spinach, or onions before being covered in another croissant layer and bagel seasoning, Baker said.
“It’s really delicious. They went over extremely well, but we just need to figure out on our end how we can properly store them to be able to sell them to customers,” she said.
Other items the shop sells include Egglettes, which are omelet muffins, and homemade cinnamon rolls. They also sell cold brew and hot drip coffee which is provided by Bolt3, another small business, Baker said.
Business has been very good so far, though it was slow at first.
“It was definitely slow at first because not a lot of people had heard of us,” Baker said. “It was more of like a slow trickle of customers coming in as they drove by and saw us.”
But as time went on, word about the shop spread and business increased. Employees also helped get the word out by offering leftover donuts to area businesses, she said.
Burks did not set out to have a donut shop, but wanted to do something that was fun and would reach the community, she said.
“We just dreamed this up over a few years and decided it was time to give it a shot,” Burks said.
Baker likes the ins and outs of running a business, and collaborating with her mother was exciting, she said.
“It was nice for us to collaborate together on that, and bring her sense of wanting to have a bakery and coming up with recipes,” Baker said.
Having a family business is not unusual for Baker and Burks. They’ve had a family business with Burks’ husband for five years, and are used to having businesses in their family, Burks said.
Naming the shop Sassy Donut Co. is also a family affair.
“My mom and I both are constantly called sassy because of our personalities,” Baker said. “So we were like, ‘Why not call it The Sassy Donut?’ Because it’s ours. It’s got our personality in it. We’re going to make these extra donuts. We’re trying to come up with things that are different than the usual with just icing and whatnot.”
The Sassy Donut Co. is a place for people to come be uplifted, encouraged and to have a wonderful treat, Burks said.
Baker’s favorite part of having the shop is being able to meet customers. The shop already has regular customers whose orders Baker and Burks already have down pat, she said.
“It’s really awesome to have that already where we know these people and we’ve established a relationship with them in our community,” Baker said.
For the future, Baker and Burks are preparing to have a lot of people come to the shop on June 2, which is National Donut Day. They are planning to have many different flavors available, including some new ones, she said.
Baker hopes to eventually take part in festivals, though that is still some time away.
“We have not ventured into that just yet, but we would love to be a part of that,” she said.
There also are plans to give back to the community, but this is also some time away, she said.
“We want to be able to do outreach. We want to be able to invest in charities and things like that,” Baker said.
Baker also hopes to eventually pass the shop down through the family, she said. The whole idea of the shop is to be a community, she said.
“It’s not just a transaction to us. We want to learn our customers by name and have that camaraderie,” she said.
AT A GLANCE
The Sassy Donut Co.
Where: 1279 N. Emerson Avenue, Suite G, Greenwood
Hours: Open 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday
More information: thesassydonutco.com/
