Nothing goes together like barbecue and doughnuts, right? Okay, maybe not. But the story of Hugh Mangum”™s latest culinary venture goes from one to the other deliciously, beginning with the pandemic lockdown.
Like many tristate restaurant owners, pitmaster Mangum had to quickly shut down and shift operations at his wildly popular Mighty Quinn”™s Barbecue locations last March, including one at the Westchester Mall and five in Manhattan. Pivoting from a full-service eatery to a pickup and delivery operation, Mangum and his two business partners, Christos Gourmos and Micha Magid, also worked to feed frontline workers free of charge.
Spending more time at home in Wilton proved an adjustment as well.
“In the beginning, most chefs were like, what the hell do we do? We weren”™t used to cooking at home. If it”™s a day off, we”™re ordering in,” he says. “Then I started really enjoying being with my wife and kids in a way that I wasn”™t able to previously. We were cooking a ton.”
As fans of sampling doughnuts wherever they travel, it wasn”™t long before the family started a friendly competition.
“My youngest son made a batch of doughnuts. Then my eldest son, who had made some sourdough starter at the beginning of quarantine, made a batch of doughnuts too. It just kind of started a snowball effect.”
Soon, the family was making doughnuts every day. Hugh and his wife, Laura, spent hours tweaking their recipe in search of the perfect yeast-raised doughnut. The first time they coated the final recipe in the brown butter glaze they came up with, they knew they were on to something special.
“We just kind of looked at each other and were like, we need to share this.”
Mangum approached his good friend Tim Labant, owner of dining mainstay Schoolhouse Restaurant and gourmet pizza hotspot Parlor, both in Wilton. He also brought him some doughnuts.
“I said look, ”˜You have a mixer, you guys are dealing in flour. Wouldn”™t it be cool if I did a Sunday morning at Parlor? Just a pop-up, sold a few doughnuts to some friends?”™” he recalls. “It was literally just to be creative. There was no long-term business idea.”
Labant immediately said yes. On June 6th, he posted to his Parlor Instagram that there was going to be a doughnut pop-up called Rise the next morning. Prices were set at $3 or $4 a doughnut, depending on filling.
“I”™m a total New York restaurant guy. I expected maybe 50 people to show up and each person to get like two doughnuts because in New York, no one buys dozens,” Mangum says. “Well, the first order was four dozen, sight unseen. We were sold out in 28 minutes.”
Once the shock wore off, Rise became a full family operation. While Mangum and Laura regrouped every week to see what worked and what could be better, their three sons got a crash course in customer service.
“Quinn, Lucas and Henry ”” Laura and I marvel at them as human beings,” he says. “ I”™m so stoked that they”™re my kids. They”™re really awesome humans, and they worked super hard.”
As demand exploded, Rise quickly outgrew the space at Parlor; Labant immediately offered a sublet of Schoolhouse, which has been closed throughout the pandemic. Mangum added two fryers, plus Covid protocol elements, and the crowds kept coming. Sunday mornings quickly spread to Saturdays, too.
As the weather has cooled, portable heaters have been added for customers, who regularly wait in line up to 90 minutes or more to get their gourmet doughnut fix. Though doors open at 8 a.m., Mangum says it”™s not uncommon to see folks lining up at 7:30 am or earlier. Laura”™s hot chocolate made from scratch is a great motivator, too.
Mangum says that just like Mighty Quinn”™s, which he and Laura started by trucking their smoker to a market in Brooklyn, the birth of Rise Doughnuts has been an organic, community-driven experience. He”™s genuinely grateful for what has come out of a very tough time.
“I think that what Covid has forced a lot of people to do is to become introspective about things. For me, it forced the hustle that I already had, into hustling something else that I didn”™t even plan on; and, it”™s a family business,” he says. “In so many ways, 2020 sucked; but this has been an enormous silver lining.”
