Today we’d like to introduce you to Brandon and Angie Moors.
Brandon, Angie, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Brandon: I grew up in Denton, Texas and was part of a large extended family. Often my mom’s family would meet and we would all celebrate birthdays and holidays with family feasts. I couldn’t wait to play with my cousins and see what dessert my aunts made. I developed a love of donuts with my dad, who could never refuse a good cake donut. He was a police officer so naturally, he knew a good donut! We jokingly coined ourselves as donut connoisseurs. After graduating from the University of North Texas in 2008, my wife, Angie, and I, moved to Fort Worth where I worked at the Ashton Hotel starting as a Valet and eventually moving up to the Food & Beverage Manager. I then went to Central Market in 2014 where I was the purchaser for the bakery department before making the decision to go full time FunkyTown, which happened the following year, in 2015. During my years at the hotel, I saw a need in Fort Worth for a gourmet donut shop that would put a different twist on the typical donut. After several years of talking about it, I talked my mom and wife into joining the team and sought out to see if we could make this dream come true. We developed the LLC in 2014, started catering out of our house until May of 2016 which is when we finally opened our brick and mortar.
Angie: I started my career in 2005 in the Weddings & Events industry where I had a range of positions from Banquet Director to Catering Sales, Food & Beverage Director and ending with General Manager of an event venue in Fort Worth before I went full-time FunkyTown which was in Fall of 2017. As Brandon mentioned, the donut shop has really been his dream since before we married in 2008! When he finally had the opportunity to really go for it, I was there to support him in any way possible. During the time we catered out of our house, I helped prepare orders with him and his mom, Ruth, and would then go to work (aka my “other job”). I helped him open the brick and mortar and worked every morning until I needed to go to my other job in order to help get the shop going for the day. After a few months, I was able to stay behind the scenes and really handled more of the paperwork, payroll, admin work, emails and order sheets. In Fall of 2017, I left my 12 year career in catering, weddings & events to go full-time with my husband and try to help grow our business!
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
There have definitely been challenges along the way. While catering out of our house, we struggled finding a brick and mortar. Ideally, we needed a second generation restaurant that already had the nuts and bolts of what we needed – especially the grease trap but that just did not exist at that time. We finally found the location but the challenge with our location was the size – it is only 600sqft and most of that is kitchen space. As you can imagine, that limits everything! We can only store so many ingredients, we can only make so many donuts for the day, we can only have so many “back up” boxes and dry storage ingredients on hand at one time and we are constantly on top of each other. You learn as you go, so we were constantly making changes to our processes to be more efficient and manage our storage to the best of our abilities. The location was a complete build out, which we learned so much during this process – the city requirements, the cost, the permits! We signed our lease in November of 2015 but we were unable to obtain our permits to start construction until mid-to-late March of 2016 – this was when we thought we would be open so to only begin our construction in March really put us behind. We finally opened in May of 2016 – but during the construction process, there was hiccup after hiccup – more time, and more money. With all of this said, we have come a long way since we started catering out of our house – one of the most memorable stories would have to be when we had an order for 1,000 donuts and we needed to place 4 donuts per box….this was all out of our house! We had two tabletop fryers that could fry 4-6 donuts at a time, each. It literally took us all day to finish this order and we had to move our furniture so we could bring in 6ft tables to create an assembly line, and we called in our best friends & family members (with food handler cards) to help us finish. We did it but man, was it a struggle!
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about FunkyTown Donuts – what should we know?
FunkyTown Donuts is a family owned gourmet donut shop, dedicated to making handcrafted donuts and providing a great customer service experience. We aim to put a Funky twist on the traditional donut, and give that good old southern charm. It is our belief that quality ingredients are very important and we make as much from scratch as possible. We use fresh fruit that we puree in our glazes, not artificial flavorings – and we try to bring as much seasonal flavors as possible to our Funky Fresh donuts. Our dough is a two hour process before it is even fried. We hand cut, hand dip and hand top every single donut so we do not have any fancy machines doing the work for us. There are a variety of donuts offered daily including yeast and cake donuts, with a rotating list of seasonal glazes. We rotate our flavors weekly and customers can find our weekly flavors on our website as we always have 4 weeks of flavors listed at a time. We offer gluten free and vegan options on Sunday’s and Wednesday’s too! We also try to be as involved in the community as possible and participate in many local charitable events. In 2018, we are featuring one charity donut per month and giving 50% of the proceeds back to that organization. We provide catering services for large events and weddings, including donut bars and donut walls, and we are one of few donut shops that offer donut letters where you can spell any message you want out of our donuts! We hope that the love we have in our family, and passion we have towards providing a quality product will be felt in every bite.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
Brandon: Definitely my mom! She has been a huge component in making this business successful and has been there since day one. She helped for every order that we had out of our house, helped get our brick and mortar, helped open the shop and continues to work from time to time, and she is the one that keeps our numbers in line! Outside of my mom, we have been fortunate enough to have the support of our friends, other family members and other small business owners in the area. We could not have done this without all of them and their continued support! Our mentors have been other successful business owners – we have developed wonderful relationships with them and it is so nice to bounce ideas off of each other. We are continually learning from them and will be forever grateful!
Angie: Yes, definitely my mother-in-law, Ruth! She has been a huge asset and we could not have done this without her! Our friends and family have also been huge supporters & cheerleaders – we are blessed to have them all in our lives! There are a couple of our closest friends that we call our “first employees” and they have been there for anything and everything. Not only helping us with orders when we were in a crunch, but they are always supporting us in any capacity possible. I have to also recognize my fellow event professionals. The events industry is such a special industry – they support each other SO much and I am so thankful to have them in my life. They order from us, they send us business/leads, they share big news via social media and so much more! I would have to also say that the support of our community has been huge. We cannot thank them enough for all that they have done and continue to do to support us.
Pricing:
- Donuts range from $1.50-$3.50 each, depending on the flavor.
- Rental opportunities available for our donut walls and donut bars – please inquire.
Contact Info:
- Address: 1000 8th Ave, Suite 101
Fort Worth, TX 76104 - Website: www.FunkyTownDonuts.com
- Phone: 817-862-9750
- Email: Angie@FunkyTownDonuts.com OR Brandon@FunkyTownDonuts.com
- Instagram: @funkytowndonuts
- Facebook: @funkytowndonuts
- Twitter: @funkytowndonuts
Image Credit:
Sarah Kate Photography, Lily Hayes Photography, Tim Severson Photography, Tracy Autem Photography
Getting in touch: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
