There is no conveyer belt at Allie’s Donuts Inc.; the doughnuts are all made fresh by hand, the way Allie Briggs made them when he started the business nearly three decades ago.
Even the recipes are the same, apart from a few tweaks to accommodate ingredient changes by suppliers.
Facing the Holidays with a Cancer Diagnosis
The holidays are often painted as a time of joy, tradition, and togetherness. But for…
Learn More
Daughter Anne Drescher bought the company with her husband, Buddy, in 1986. “I’ve been here since it started,” she said, remembering going to school smelling like doughnuts.
The menu features 32 basic doughnut varieties, 15 kinds of muffins (four fat-free), plus brownies and carrot cake, twists and other confections – and Allie’s takes special orders, such as coconut instead of sugar on a glazed pastry.
“We’ve got the old-fashioned turnover and the old-fashioned fruit square, made with sugar and lard, just like when my dad started the company,” Drescher said. Mincemeat was one of the most popular, until Whipple Co. stopped making Grandmother’s brand, “the only mince we’d use.”
Allie’s has old-fashioned prices, too: 75 cents buys a bagel with cream cheese; a dozen doughnut holes runs less than a dollar.
The business is a family affair. The Dreschers’ daughter, 28-year-old Julie, is a decorator and manager, as are her mother and Allie’s sister Valda “Val” Gould. Their 22-year-old son, Mathew, is a cutter when he’s not in school.
Allie’s has a following that approaches cult status. “People come in all the time,” Drescher said, “and say they’ve been away, or they’re going out to visit their kids in Nevada or somewhere,” and they had to buy Allie’s.
They have come from all over the world: Canada, Mexico, Hong Kong; one fellow from Spain who’d gone to college in Rhode Island. “He missed us so much, he actually wrote a letter and asked what it would take to get a franchise started over there,” Dresher said.
That is not likely. The worst crisis the business ever had followed the family’s one attempt to franchise Allie’s name. That shop, located in Middletown, closed soon after opening, Drescher said. Afterward, “we had two, three years when people were like, ‘Allie’s? Allie’s is closed!’ ”
But the business recovered from that, as well as from the banking crisis, when Davisville Credit Union shut down, taking its accounts with it.
And then the Route 2 bypass project turned the street from a highway to a byroad – one change the family and their customers welcomed. “The traffic had been so busy, it started to get dangerous,” Drescher said.
Now the challenge is “just competition,” she said – and regulation: income and property taxes, worker’s comp, the litter tax, the fire tax, the water testing fees for the shop’s two wells. Even the location is becoming a liability, as property values soar. “Dad used to just have to make the doughnuts, count the money, go to the bank,” Drescher said wistfully.
As for the low-carb trend, it’s also a challenge, but at the same time, giant doughnuts have become popular. Those started “long ago,” she said, “with my mom and dad deciding to make a big doughnut ’cause they didn’t have time to make a birthday cake.”
Today, Allie’s makes giant doughnuts in two sizes – both the thickness of a regular doughnut, to cook properly, but the diameter of a dinner plate or serving platter – plus “novelty cakes” in any shape but a trademark “or anything indecent.”
The next challenge for Allie’s may be finding a buyer – one who will promise to do things the Allie’s way.
“It’s because we’re tired. We’d like to retire while we can still enjoy it,” said Drescher. She’s 51, her husband 54, and they are finding it harder to turn on the ovens and the Fryolators at 1:30 a.m., so the doughnuts can be frosted and ready by dawn. They’d be glad to pass the business to their children – but only if they decide they’re interested.
Drescher thinks she might like to do some volunteer work with children – other than donating doughnuts. And someday, it might be nice to be introduced as Anne Drescher, not Anne from Allie’s.
Meanwhile, she said, “You don’t have to eat 12 doughnuts. If you eat one, every once in a while, that’ll keep me in business.”
COMPANY PROFILE: Allie’s Donuts Inc.
OWNERS: Anne (Briggs) Drescher and Walter “Buddy” Drescher
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Take-out bakery
and coffee shop
LOCATION: 3661 Quaker Lane (Route 2), North Kingstown
YEAR FOUNDED: 1968
EMPLOYEES: 20 to 28, depending on
the season
ANNUAL REVENUE: WND
