[AT] OT-No excuse not to stop in Spartanburg

[WF Smith]

This from the Spartanburg, SC "Herald Journal", See ya'll there:

"Krispy Kreme gets a little sweeter
By Susan Orr | Business Writer
susan.orr at shj.com
Spartanburg's sweetest local landmark will soon get a whole new look.

The 35-year-old Krispy Kreme store on North Church Street will be replaced
with a larger building across the street that will offer more space for
customers, new menu items and a more upscale look.

"It's going to be really exciting," said storeowner Glenn Reese, a state
senator, who said the new store is the first part in a long-range plan to
add several locations around the Upstate.

"There's just a lot of things we can do in this new facility that we're not
capable of doing right now."

Reese's new store will be on a site formerly occupied by a tire shop.
Workers started demolishing the Firestone building this week.

Reese said construction should begin next week, with the shop open by May.

During the first few months the store is open, Reese said he plans to
produce doughnuts from both locations to ease the transition. After that,
it's not certain what will happen with the old site.

The new shop will be a two-story brick building with arched windows and a
drive-through window. It will include seating for 45 customers, as compared
with the 15-seat current store. The new space also will have more parking
and 2,500 square feet of office space on the second floor.

Reese said he custom-designed his new shop so its exterior will blend in
with other brick buildings in the area, including QS/1 Data Systems, Advance
America and Spartanburg Memorial Auditorium.

One thing the new store will have in common with the old location is that
customers will be able to watch doughnuts being made -- something Krispy
Kreme refers to as "doughnut theater."

Tasha Bandy, assistant marketing manager for Krispy Kreme, said this feature
contributes to the company's appeal.

"We consider our stores to be a fun place for customers to come in and
experience doughnut theater," Bandy said.

"It's an education process. It also shows the freshness of the product and
the quality of the product."

Because the 24-hour shop is a popular study spot for college students, Reese
said he plans to appeal to that crowd by hosting acoustic musicians some
nights and maybe wiring the store so that customers can plug in their laptop
computers.

Krispy Kreme is now developing a sugar-free glaze that Reese plans to sell
at his new store.

"We'll have the traditional high-calorie, sugar-sugar, regular old
doughnuts, and the new sugar-free doughnuts," Reese said.

After opening the new store, Reese also hopes to expand Krispy Kreme's
Upstate presence.

Though the Church Street store is Reese's only location, he has the
franchise rights for Krispy Kreme in Spartanburg, Cherokee, Union and
Anderson counties.

Within the next several years, Reese said he would like to open stores on
Spartanburg's west side, in Gaffney and in Anderson County, handling all the
paperwork of those locations from the expanded office space in the new
Church Street store.

Reese said the bigger office space will allow him to do coupon mail-outs and
other promotions that he has not had space to pursue.

"Spartanburg's going to be the nucleus for doughnut production in the
Upstate," he said.

The first Krispy Kreme store opened in 1937 in Winston-Salem, N.C. The
company went public in 2000 and has more than 360 stores across the United
States and in Canada, Mexico, England and Australia."

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