KRISPY KREME

"We make our Original Glazed Doughnut the way we always have. Because it's the right way. The fun way. And we love doing it that way for you - our customer."

OUR LOCATIONS

ABOUT KRISPY KREME

DOUGHNUTS AND COFFEE SINCE 1937

Krispy Kreme is about yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Whether you grew up with a Krispy Kreme store in your hometown or have just tasted a hot Original Glazed doughnut for the first time, we thought you might be interested to learn a bit about our long and history. You may not know that we’ve been around for more than 70 years!

1937. We opened our doors on July 13, 1937.

Vernon Rudolph bought a secret yeast-raised doughnut recipe from a New Orleans French chef, rented a building in what is now historic Old Salem in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and began selling Krispy Kreme doughnuts on July 13, 1937 to local grocery stores. The delicious scent of cooking doughnuts drifted into the streets, and passers-by stopped to ask if they could buy hot doughnuts. So, he cut the hole in an outside wall and started selling hot Original Glazed doughnuts directly to customers on the sidewalk.

40s & 50s. Improving the doughnut making process through innovations.

By now there was a small chain of stores, mostly family-owned. They all used the Krispy Kreme recipe, but each store made its doughnuts from scratch. For Rudolph and Krispy Kreme, the results were always good but not consistent enough. So Krispy Kreme built a mix plant and developed a distribution system that delivered the perfect dry doughnut mix to each Krispy Kreme store. Then Rudolph and his equipment engineers invented and built.
Krispy Kreme’s own doughnut-making equipment. From the 1950s on, they focused on improving and automating the doughnut-making process.

60s & 70s. Our stores are familiar gathering places for friends.

During the 1960s, Krispy Kreme enjoyed steady growth throughout the Southeast and began expanding outside its traditional roots. The design of Krispy Kreme stores became consistent including the hallmark green tile roofs and heritage road signs. Veron Rudolph, our founder, died in 1973, and growth slowed as the company was reorganized for sale to Beatrice Foods Company in 1976.

80s & 90s. The hot doughnut experience…everyone was talking about us!

In 1982, a small group of our early franchisees bought KRISPY Kreme back from Beatrice Foods. A renewed focus on the hot doughnut experience became a priority for the company. Krispy Kreme began to expand outside the Southeast and opened its first store in New York City in 1996. Soon afterward, in 1999, the first store in California opened and national expansion was well underway. When Krispy Kreme turned 60 years old in 1997, it was officially recognized as a 29th century American icon with the donation of company artifacts to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History.

Today. Expansion, Innovation, extending the Krispy Kreme experience.

In April 2000, Krispy Kreme held an initial public offering of common stock. It opened the first international store in Canada just outside of Toronto in December 2001. The first stores outside North America opened in Sydney Australia and in London, England in 2003. Since then, Krispy Kreme stores have opened in Asia, Mexico, the Middle East, Puerto Rico and Turkey. Our international expansion is continuing and in addition, we are working on new tasty products. We are very excited about our future. Stay tuned for more innovative things to come!