UPDATE 11/30/2021: Marcus Johnson, CEO of Lone Star, sent an email to say that some of the information in the original version of this story was incorrect. The story was updated; sorry for the mistake.
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Lone Star Donuts, a donut store in Dallas that has been around for more than 70 years, might be on N. Beckley Ave. 1727 closed for a few weeks at the end of the year for repairs and maintenance work.
The parent organization Lone Star Consolidated Foods will continue to manufacture baked goods such as bread, cookies, donuts and pastries for chains such as Walmart and Sam’s Club.
“The store could be closed after Christmas or New Years when the traffic subsides,” says Johnson.
But no more driving for donuts that were baked that day, as well as the breakfast burritos, coffee, the typical breakfast brothels and popcorn that were sold Tuesday to Saturday from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Lone Star Donut’s roots date back to 1950, but the store has been in its current location since 1963. The company is credited with launching the first automated donut production line in Dallas, where you could see the donuts being made – a convention that has since been promoted by Krispy Kreme.
By the ’80s they had grown into Lone Star Consolidated Foods, Inc., with a wholesale operation that surpassed the donut shop and baked other goods such as cinnamon rolls and Danish for the hospitality industry, supermarkets, restaurants and other outlets.
By contemporary gourmet standards, the donuts were neither chic nor varied. They had four basic options: plain, powdered sugar, cinnamon sugar, or coated in chocolate, either in cake donut or yeast / raised, plus apple fritters, jelly stix and really, that was it, very old-fashioned.
In March 2020, without realizing the looming specter of the pandemic, they still optimistically posted their full menu of donuts and goods.
But by November 2020 they had cut the hours and also stopped making fresh donuts to sell imperfect and overcrowded items from their production facility such as sweet rolls, cinnamon rolls and baby cakes.
At the time, they hoped to be able to offer their traditional products again “as soon as the effects of the pandemic are over”.
Much of the store’s mystique lies in its nostalgic value, from its prototypical ’50s architecture to its classic Lone Star retro donut sign that is part of a long tradition of iconic donut shop signs – a reminder of one Time and place long gone.
Johnson says they are not reviving donut production for the time being, although they are not ruling it out entirely.
“The store brought us here and we want to stay true to our heritage,” he says. “But it’s not like when my father started in 1962. Before the pandemic, even when we were still in full swing, the store only made up 1 percent of our total sales. We’ll see how much we bring back.”
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