NORFOLK, Va. — Doughnut lovers, get ready to head over to Granby Street! A new bakery called The Donut Dugout will open in just a few weeks at the former Naci’s Corner Café, right next to Doumar’s.
Opening up the week after Labor Day, the owners said they plan to have a variety of coffee and doughnuts, starting off exclusively with takeout.
Charles Ieng and his family are right now putting on the finishing touches, turning the former Turkish café into a new space.
"It’s been pretty intense," Ieng said. "We had a lot of old equipment we didn’t need, so we had to take it out, try to sell it, and then we could move in all of our equipment and try to change it up a little bit."
Originally from Maine, Ieng knew he wanted to be an entrepreneur in the food service industry. He said he chose doughnuts “because I wanted to do something that makes people happy. Doughnuts always make people happy.”
He also wanted to be near the ocean but said no storefronts in Virginia Beach fit his vision.
Ieng said when he first asked a real estate agent about the Granby Street storefront, it wasn’t available, but that changed during a family visit to Norfolk.
"While I was up here, that real estate agent had called me back and said, ‘Hey, if you still want that place, it’s available, come check it out,'" Ieng recalled. "I was only 10 minutes away, so we came in and after that, we signed on it."
As for the shop’s name, Ieng said his kids are to thank for The Donut Dugout.
“All of my children play baseball, so our family has always revolved around baseball,” he said. “I wanted to contribute this to them as well as the community.”