Lakewood Lore

In a doughnut business, some always go to waist

John M. Kelly, 74, who has been in business in Lakewood for 44 years figures that during that time he has provided us with about 14,822,000 doughnuts.

Admittedly, that's a lot of breakfast fare; however, Kelly confesses he himself is partly responsible for the big tally.

"After coming into the business tipping the scale at 140, I put on 40 pounds during my first two years, and today I weigh 230," he said, shaking his head as a man victimized by his own beneficence.

Kelly began selling his popular sinkers in a shop on Madison and Lincoln on July 4, 1948. Two years later he moved to Detroit and Wyandotte, where he has been ever since.

"In the beginning, I built a delivery service in Lakewood by going door-to-door, and then asking those who bought from me if they would be interested in my stopping by every week," he recalled.

"At the time, I used a Crosley automobile to peddle my products and otherwise get around," he added. (The Crosley car, a midget-sized make, was manufactured from 1939 to '52 as an offshoot of Crosley Radio Corp. It peaked in '48. Sales for that year totaled 25,000 units.)

"It was so small that nobody would believe me when I told them that on a trip to visit relatives I used it to drive my wife and three children all the way to Springfield, Mass. and back," he said.

Kelly was born and grew up in Waterbury, Conn., which he's proud to report is also the birthplace of the wife of James Nicholson, first permanent settler on Detroit Avenue in Lakewood.

"Funny thing, there were three John Kellys, including myself, who were altar boys at the same time in my church in Waterbury, and none of us were related," he mused.

Later he attended Springfield College in Massachusetts where he earned a bachelor's degree in social studies in 1942. In that same year he married Nellie Godek of Springfield.

After college, he followed the path of his academic training by doing two-year stints as boys' program director at each of three charitable organizations -- first the Nicetown Club in north Philadelphia, then the Sarah Heinz House in Pittsburgh and finally, the Goodrich Settlement House on Cleveland's East Side, which he joined in 1946.

"My fondness for doughnuts really did have something to do with my getting into the business of selling them," Kelly next recalled.

"At Goodrich House I complimented a man who regularly supplied our staff meetings with doughnuts and then ended teaming up with him for a half year before coming to Lakewood to open my own store in '48. He helped teach me the business."

Originally, Kelly had no mixer. "I had to mix all my batter by hand and had only one pot on a three-burner gas plate for frying my doughnuts," he said.

"And 25 cents a dozen was the going rate for doughnuts back in those days," he further remembered.

For several years Kelly lived about his first store on Madison before moving to a nearby home on Lincoln that he now occupies. Nellie, who helped her husband in the enterprises and also worked in a payroll department for local government employees, died two years ago.

There are five Kelly children, three of whom -- daughters Joan and Carol and son Michael -- work at the shop. Two other daughters are Jacqueline, a pediatrician in Annapolis, Md., and Patricia, a homemaker in Santa Rosa, Calif.

While mostly a family-run business, two long-time employees -- Juanita McNeeley and John Yates -- also are an integral part of the operation.

"What changes have there been through the years?" we asked. "Automatic machinery and the introduction of franchise selling?"

"Yes, both," he replied, adding that he remembered when "we independents had the market pretty much to ourselves."

"What do you see in the future for the business?" we continued.

"One of these days I'm going to give it to my children and get out," he said with a smile.

Kelly has never gotten into coupons. "Why?" we asked.

"Maybe it's pride," he answered. "I think my doughnuts are good enough without my having to use that selling tool."

"What do you do with the doughnuts holes?" we inquired.

"We put them back to make more doughnuts," he said. "It costs as much to process the holes as it does to make whole doughnuts. You might say I always keep my eye on the doughnut, not on the hole."

This article by Dan Chabek appeared in the Lakewood Sun Post July 23, 1992. Reprinted with permission.

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