Rapid rise for doughnut chain

“A lot of people still believe we’re a large (company), some big franchise,” co-owner Tahir Gauba said recently from a corner table at the chain’s Juan Tabo-Lomas NE store as a steady stream of customers strolled past him with their boxed dozens.

“Maybe one day,” he said, “but we are family owned, locally owned.”

Donut Mart sold 1.5 million doughnuts in 2012. (Dean Hanson / Albuquerque Journal)

And growing like crazy.

Just three years after opening its first shop, Donut Mart has four stores around Albuquerque. A fifth is set to open next month across from University of New Mexico. For those keeping count, that’s more Albuquerque locations than either of the two major national-brand names, Dunkin’ Donuts or Krispy Kreme.

Donut Mart sold 1.5 million doughnuts in 2012. That’s roughly 4,100 holey helpings per day.

“We are even surprised ourselves that we’ve grown so fast,” said Tahir, who joined brothers Amin and Haroon and father Razzak to talk about the family business recently. “But we believed in ourselves. We knew we could do that.”

From Karachi to Calif.

Doughnuts have been the Gauba family business for some time now; 27-year-old Amin said he’s been around the industry most of his life.

But the Gauba clan didn’t know anything about the doughy delights when they immigrated to the U.S. from Karachi, Pakistan, in 1994.

“Now they have (doughnuts) over there, but at the time, no,” Tahir said. “At the time, there was no Internet, so we didn’t know a thing about America, to be honest.”

The Gaubas first settled near Razzak’s brother in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.

Razzak, whose background was in manufacturing, learned the retail ropes in Southern California, helping at his brother’s card/gift shop.

With only a tenuous grasp of English, it was sometimes a challenge. Razzak had been honing his language skills by scouring the classifieds and engaging strangers in conversations about whatever house/car/boat they were selling, but it didn’t prepare him for everything. Tahir still remembers the day he and his father were manning the store together when a customer made what they considered a highly confusing request.

“This lady came and asked for paper clips and we didn’t know (the phrase) paper clips,” Tahir recalled with a hearty laugh. “The poor lady.”

Just three years after the Gauba family opened the first Donut Mart retail shop, the chain is about to launch its fifth location. Pictured, from left, are Haroon Gauba, Amin Gauba, Razzak Gauba and Tahir Gauba.

After about 15 months in California, the Gaubas moved to Albuquerque where they had an even larger network of extended family.

It was in the Duke City that they got deep into doughnuts.

Starting something

Not long after the Gaubas relocated to Albuquerque, Haroon took a job at a Dunkin’ Donuts in the Northeast Heights.

That kind of started it all.

Various Gaubas followed Haroon into the business, and in 2001, the family bought its first Dunkin’ Donuts franchise. Then they added two more. The Gaubas had stores on Juan Tabo, Gibson and 4th Street.

But when the family got out of the business in 2005 — “things just weren’t going good with the Dunkin’ corporation, we had separate issues, we decided to give it up,” Tahir said — Razzak’s sons realized they should find a new outlet for their doughnut know-how.

“It’s what we grew up in,” Amin said.

In the summer of 2005, the brothers launched their own wholesale business. They fried, frosted and glazed in a small Northeast Albuquerque kitchen and then delivered their sugary bounty to convenience stores and hotels around the Albuquerque metro area, into Santa Fe, and, for a time, even Clines Corners.

Then the recession hit. Some of their clients went under, others couldn’t keep up with payments. That’s when the brothers heeded their father’s advice.

“Only one credit I claim,” Razzak said. “When we were doing the wholesale, I was pushing them all the time for the retail (shops).

“And, finally, we start the retail.”

The Gauba family’s Donut Mart chain has grown rapidly since opening its first retail shop in 2010. This is the Donut Mart store near the Juan Tabo-Lomas NE intersection.

Rising fast

Donut Mart’s first storefront opened on Juan Tabo on Super Bowl Sunday in 2010. It was not necessarily a promising start.

“I remember that day we had about four customers, five customers,” Tahir said.

It was slow again on Monday. Tuesday, however, the Gaubas put up a banner advertising a temporarily discounted dozen for $3.99. The floodgates opened. By the end of the end of 2010, they’d added another three locations and sparked plenty of curiosity.

“People were like, ‘Wait a minute — what’s going on? What is this Donut Mart coming in?’” Amin said. “People started coming in because of that.”

Donut Mart — which currently employs about 50 people — is slated to open its fifth shop next month. It’s at 1916 Central SE, right next to a Dunkin’ Donuts.

Such proximity wasn’t intentional, the Gaubas say. They just wanted a desirable, parking-friendly property near UNM.

“It’s the heart of Albuquerque, it’s where you want to be,” Amin said.

Geared toward a college-area clientele, the new shop is Donut Mart’s biggest to date. It will seat approximately 80 in its 3,000 square feet. In addition to the chain’s staples — those peanut-butter-and-jelly doughnuts, that piñon coffee, the bagels and muffins — it will also sell frozen yogurt.

It’s just one of several upcoming changes for the chain. Donut Mart is also getting a new kitchen. Located in a building next to the Juan Tabo/Lomas store, the 4,400-square-foot kitchen should be producing all the chain’s goodies by May.

Plans also call for additional growth.

Tahir estimates that Albuquerque and surrounding communities could support another 20 stores. He said Donut Mart could have its first Rio Rancho locations by the end of this year.

And maybe, he said, Donut Mart will start offering franchises, thus becoming the massive enterprise some people already assume it is.

“Hopefully, one day we’ll have our office Downtown, a top-floor Donut Mart headquarters,” Tahir said. “It’s a dream.”