Five years ago, a new shop opened on North Henry Street that quickly gained cult status among Alexandria donut lovers.
Now, as Sugar Shack celebrates its anniversary, the business is giving back by donating 5 cents from every donut sold in January to ACT for Alexandria.
“We’ve always given lots of donuts to charities – we’re pretty generous that way, but we wanted to do something that was a little more Alexandria-specific,” said owner Rob Krupika from his Alexandria shop this week. He estimates the donation will total more than $1,000 to ACT for Alexandria.
ACT for Alexandria is Alexandria’s community foundation — a local nonprofit organization that works to increase charitable investment and community engagement in Alexandria. ACT for Alexandria’s main programs include a racial equity initiative, the annual giving campaign Spring2ACTion and capacity building for Alexandria’s nonprofit organizations.
As for Sugar Shack: “It’s been quite a whirlwind,” Krupika said of the past five years.
“We learned a lot, but we are still doing the same thing — just trying to make people happy,” he said.
Some changes were huge and some were small but meaningful. About 6 months after opening Sugar Shack, the speakeasy Captain Gregory’s opened next door. (Now, Krupika is trying to figure out how to add more seats because Captain Gregory’s is packed all the time.)
Less than 18 months after opening Alexandria’s Sugar Shack, Krupika opened an Arlington location, and in 2019 added a Loudoun County shop.
“It took us a while to get operationally aligned, but we have a good system now and good managers at every store,” Krupika said. His experience has led him to provide advice to other companies looking to go from one store to two or more. What he learned the hard way: “Adding a second store more than doubles your work.”
The donut recipe itself changed, too, removing allergens like egg and dairy, which effectively made the donut base vegan. That was a long process, he said.
They also changed how the donuts are displayed to help the line move faster, introduced self-serve coffee, and (with significant community input and blind taste-testing) switched their coffee to Lavazza. “We’ve gotten a lot of compliments from customers on our coffee now,” Krupika said.
Krupika said 2019 was the company’s toughest year. The federal government shutdown in January 2019 hurt sales. Then, the Metro shut down all Alexandria-area Metro rail stations, which affected sales in June, July and August. (Sugar Shack is located just a few minutes’ walk from the Braddock Road Metro Station.)
What’s coming in 2020? This will be the year Sugar Shack builds out its catering program. “Who doesn’t like donuts at meetings?!” Krupika said.
And there’s another store in the works here in Northern Virginia, but Krupika declined to disclose the location. Stay tuned.
Now through Jan. 31, 2020, 5-cents from every donut sale will be donated to ACT for Alexandria from Sugar Shack Donuts in Alexandria. Sugar Shack is located at 804 N. Henry St.
