It is amazing that the Krispy Kreme doughnut began with a hand-written recipe scribbled on a piece of paper in Paducah, Kentucky, and has now grown to a company  over 65 years old and still growing all across America.  The Krispy Kreme story begins in 1933.

A local farmer and storeowner, Ishmael Armstrong bought the company.  His nephew, Vernon Rudolph, who was, at the time, just out of high school, entered his uncle’s business by going door-to-door to deliver doughnuts. Later, Krispy Kreme moved to Nashville, Tennessee, a bigger city, in hopes of improving business.  Krispy Kreme then became somewhat of a family business with more members of the Rudolph family joining the business and opening stores in West Virginia and Georgia.

On a hot July day in 1937, Vernon and two of his friends came to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, with $25.  They rented the front of a store and talked the grocer into loaning them ingredients to make their first doughnuts.  Vernon promised to reimburse the generous grocer. Making the doughnuts became harder, though.  They were forced to work long hours in the sticky south without the luxury of air conditioning.  Temperatures were also increased by the doughnuts themselves, which were very hot. In spite of the difficulty, the first doughnuts were finally ready to go.  However the three realized that all they had to make deliveries in was their 1936 Pontiac. They converted it to a delivery van by removing the back seat and installing a rack.
After the first day of doughnut making, people passing on the street would enter the doughnut shop, lured in by the smell. They begged Vernon to sell them some of the fresh Krispy Kreme doughnuts.  Up to this point, the business had run on wholesale.  Vernon decided to sell doughnuts by cutting a window into the wall of the shop.  Krispy Kreme became a wholesale and retail business, as it is today.

By 1960 Krispy Kreme was recognized by the green roof and “Marching K’s” symbol.  The addition of a coffeehouse and a window allowed customers to see the cooking process. In 1973, Rudolph died suddenly and the company was later sold to a large food service business that brought many changes to Krispy Kreme’s operation.  New and different products were used to make the donuts and performance was increased.  Attention to detail and quality consequently decreased.  A few years later, Krispy Kreme was sold again.  The former workers of Krispy Kreme brought back the old ways of great doughnuts and coffee.