Exeter, North Hampton bakery Donut Love sold

NORTH HAMPTON — After five years of 100-hour work weeks making tens of thousands of their unique potato fritters, Mike and Stephanie Oliveira have just sold their donut love company to Goodwin family managementthe owner of Friendly Toast restaurants in New England.

“The first time we spoke with Eric and Tyler (Goodwin) we knew they were a perfect match for Donut Love,” Stephanie Oliveira wrote of the couple. Facebook page. “We know they’re going to take Donut Love and make it thrive and grow to a place that Mike and I just couldn’t, as a little mom and pop.”

This little mom-and-pop donut shop started in 2016 in the kitchen of Oliveira’s home, making and selling their special potato donuts for friends and wholesale distribution. It fulfilled a dream that Mike’s late mother had of opening a family bakery.

Mike, a North Hampton native and 17-year veteran of the North Hampton and Stratham Police Department, would eventually leave law enforcement to work full-time at the burgeoning business. Stephanie quit her job as an MRI technologist at Boston Children’s Hospital to raise their newborn son, Cash.

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Fittingly, their wholesale kitchen bakery turned into a Donut Love retail store at 112 Lafayette Road in North Hampton when they signed a lease for the place in 2017 on Mother’s Day, opening the Mike’s late mother’s birthday, August 11 of the same year.

As its popularity grew, requiring more production space, the company expanded to Exeter, eventually opening Comfort bakery company at 75 Portsmouth Ave. in Exeter, a large commercial kitchen and full-scale cafe.

But as their household also grew, adding little Magnolia to the mix of descendants of Cooper and Logan, the 12-year-old twins of Cash and Mike, family time became shorter and shorter, as Stephanie worked in the front of the store with Mike hip-deep. making donuts.

Last June, the couple announced it was time to sell so they could spend more time together and with their children, but they were looking for a buyer who would respect Donut Love’s legacy.

Previous story:A couple seeks to sell Donut Love to the “right person”. Oliveiras explains why.

This week, the couple announced they had sold to the Goodwins, who the Oliveiras say will do just that because they “got it.”

Donut Love in good hands

According to Stephanie Oliveira, after reading her article about the sale in June, one of Goodwin’s management teams who like their donuts told the Goodwins about buying the company. They then contacted her husband.

“Mike had a phone call with them,” she said. “He told me after the call that ‘that seems right.’ We met Eric and Tyler and everything seemed to line up.

According to the Oliverias, as owners of Friendly toastthe Goodwins have the experience and expertise to run a successful restaurant business and do so with “heart, family first and incredible core values”.

According to the Goodwin Family Management website, the Manchester-based company is run by chairman Eric Goodwin, a “serial entrepreneur always looking for the next mountain to climb”. He started in 1999, when as an experienced restaurateur he opened a hospitality industry recruitment business. The family brand grew to include NOBL Beverages, and in 2013 it bought Friendly Toast, then in Portsmouth and Cambridge, Mass.

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His son, Tyler, joined the family business in 2012, after graduating from UNH. According to the website, he currently serves as chief operating officer “overseeing day-to-day operations.”

Friendly Toast offers all-day “morning, noon and evening” brunches and meals on its premises, according to its website. The Goodwins expanded Friendly Toast’s footprint to include restaurants in Burlington, Vermont, Bedford, New Hampshire, as well as the Burlington Mall, Danvers, North Andover, Dedham and Chestnut Hill, all in Massachusetts.

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However, according to Stephanie Oliveira, the Goodwins will maintain Donut Love under its current brand and in its two locations in North Hampton and Exeter. She said the Goodwins have all the recipes for Donut Love, which will remain the same as the current production team.

What is the Oliveiras’ next move?

Mike Oliveira will stay on as a consultant for a few weeks, to ensure a smooth transition, she said, and then the Oliveiras will spend some quality family time together before deciding what’s next.

“But,” Stephanie Oliveira added with a laugh, “wearing any uniform might be in her future.”

Leaving Donut Love behind is bittersweet for both of them, she added, as it has been their creation and their second home for five years.

Mike Oliveira worked his last shift at Donut Love last weekend, he wrote, adding that he was “beyond grateful” for the support of his wife and community, which enabled him to his dream and that of his late mother to come true.

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“So as I say my last goodbye,” Oliveira posted, “Thank you. Thank you for all your love for the past five years. It has truly been an honor and a privilege. I am so blessed.”

Attempts to contact Eric and Tyler Goodwin to comment on this article were unsuccessful.