"On a long family road trip, it's always a good plan to have some "pit stops" along the way — places with clean restrooms and interesting snacks where you can stretch legs, refresh and fill up the tank. Will Parks, having more than a few family trips to Myrtle Beach under his belt, had just such a place in mind when he and his son, John, decided to makeover Doughdaddy's, the venerable donut shop along busy Versailles Road that had been converted from a Gulf service station by Carlton Hackney 1988.
After purchasing the shop in 2005, Parks, chairman of Citizens Commerce National Bank of Versailles, and his son, owner and operator of Saint Claire Recording of Lexington, spent some time taking stock of what they had. Eventually, they took action.
"John and I decided that we would tear down the old building and build not only a nice food and beverage mart to go with the BP brand name, but to come up with something different, so that when travelers come down the road, they'll want to stop year after year if they're on vacation, going to Keeneland or to a ball game — whatever," he recalled. "So we came up with what is actually a cafè concept. We have the wireless Web, where people who are traveling, or business men and women, can come in, take their laptop computers and do business while having breakfast or lunch or dinner."
The Parkses preserved Doughdaddy's reputation for irresistible cake and yeast donuts and expanded that portion of the business to provide, on 24-hours notice, tens of dozens of fresh-baked pastries to Keeneland, area churches, businesses and other large groups.
"It's been a challenge for me, as someone in banking and retail, to get my hands around, because donuts are something that have to be fresh," said Will Parks. In the early years the Parkses had a crew hand-making donuts through the night, opening for business at 5 a.m. "A lot of times, by 8 a.m. they were completely sold out," he recalled. "I mean, they would line up outside the store, and that went on for a couple of months before I could get a second shift trained and be able to handle the volume. That was the biggest challenge."
To extend their offerings beyond breakfast hours, they added a soup and salad bar and a selection of sandwiches. And, as dedicated Kentuckians, they added ice cream from Valentine's of Winchester, as well as a wide variety of other Kentucky food products including Gethsemani and Kenny's Farmhouse cheeses, meal and flour from Weisenberger's Mill and Mingua Brothers Jerky. The result, said John Parks, is a real departure from today's ubiquitous service station/convenience store.
"If you've got all these other chains just up the road from you at the intersection of Huntertown Road and Versailles Road," John Parks said he once pointed out to his father, "you may want to differentiate yourself — at least with the interior."
John Parks, still envisioning "something different," had another key brainstorm that he admits never would have occurred to him until after he was married. "Guys really could care less when they go into a store. I'm speaking from my perspective. If the store's a little dirty, a little grimy, we think, 'Big deal. I'll still go in there and use the bathroom.' I really could care less. I'll grab something to drink, and get on out of there. But if you look up and down Versailles Road, you're alienating half of your clientele. I would assume that a lot of women drive on Versailles Road and hate to stop at a gas station to use the bathroom, because they're usually kind of nasty."
Parks suggested to his dad that they do something special to cater to a female clientele. "A woman who goes in and loves your bathroom will shop with you forever," he said. "She'll bring her kids in. She'll buy dozens of donuts. She'll always stop there to get ice cream, because she knows that she can go in there and change her baby's diaper or she herself can go in and use the bathroom and it's not going to be a nasty mess."
A significant portion of the $1.7 million invested in the shop went toward installation of "touch-free" restrooms.
"You don't have to touch the sink to make the water turn on and same thing with the soap. You just put your hand underneath it and soap squirts out," John Parks explained.
Not only was this attention to cleanliness an important factor in "differentiating," the Parks also made what for them was an easy decision to exclude certain products found at most other convenience stores: beer and lottery tickets. "It's a personal conviction that I have," said Will Parks, a member of King's Way Assembly of God. "I take my faith very seriously, and my family likewise. I do get some people complaining that we don't have beer for the ballgames, I don't mind telling you. But on the other hand, I've got a lot of customers who come here because I don't sell either one."
A second Doughdaddy's has opened on Main Street in Jeffersonville, and its kitchen provides donuts to the Parks-owned Super Express truck stop at exit 113 along I-64 in Montgomery County. Could franchising be in the offing? "I've had a lot of requests to put the same thing in a lot of communities around Kentucky," said Will Parks. "Personally, I just don't have the time."