Rollin’ with Donuts: Sisters deliver mini donuts with pop-up stand

Published 6:30 pm Friday, June 28, 2024

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HAYFIELD — Hayfield native Jacobi Leckness is no stranger to craft shows, but she’s taken her game up another level this summer as she’s collaborated with her sister Megan Gengler to bring a traveling mini donuts pop up stand to the area.

Gengler and Leckness have taken a 10 by 10 tent, a couple of tables and formed a traveling stand called Those Good Mini Donuts. So far, they’ve appeared at small town summer festivals and graduations, and they are also willing to come to wedding receptions and family reunions.

Leckness has been involved in craft sales for quite some time and it was a few years ago when she noticed a donut stand for sale during a craft show when she came up with the idea to start her own donut stand. Last year she convinced Gengler to join her and Gengler, who has summers off from her travel nursing job, figured she’d give it a shot.

Sisters Megan Gengler, left, and Jacobi Leckness, are photographed with their donut stand, Those Good Mini Donuts. Photo provided

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“I just kind of jumped in since I had the summer off. I’ve learned a lot and there has been a lot of trouble shooting. By the fourth one we had things running smoothly. I enjoy it and it’s fun,” Gengler said. “Everybody loves mini donuts. Even when we have a technical breakdown and it slows us down a few minutes, they’ll wait pretty much forever for a bag of mini donuts.”

The sister duo offers cinnamon mini donuts along with soda and water, but they could expand in the future as they continue to gain experience.

“We’re starting out small and going from there. We may eventually go up to a trailer or a truck, but the licensing is kind of different for that. We’ve been talking to every food vendor that we see and we’ve spent the summer getting tips and tricks on how they did it and what their experience is,” Leckness said. “They say not to go into business with your family, but so far it’s so good. We’re still super new to it and we’re just getting to the point that we don’t get nervous. We still use a print out checklist that we use to make sure we don’t forget anything.”

After they sometimes receive a little help from their husbands in set-up, Leckness and Gengler are able to run the stand by themselves. The other vendors have been welcoming of the sisters and the learning process has been quick as the duo have put in about a dozen stops this summer. They plan on running through September.

“We navigated the licensing of it, which is kind of the hard part of it. This year has been our first full go of it,” Leckness said. “It’s been pretty welcoming.”

For booking information on Those Good Mini Donuts, send an email to thosegoodminidonuts@gmail.com.

Leckness’s crafting business is called Just Crafts and Junk and it involves making products out of scrap metal.