I need a hero

For the first time since he started his doughnut business, Wil Drake said he is excited that his customers can finally get their pastries while they’re hot.

Drake and co-owner Jason Wallis started Hero Doughnuts in early 2016 as a pop-up business, selling their brioche-style doughnuts in various locations including Seeds Coffee, Revelator Coffee, Ross Bridge and Pepper Place Market. In May, they announced plans for their first storefront in the former Homewood Musical Instrument Co. location on Central Avenue. They intend to open by late summer or early fall.

Drake said having a physical location has been “the goal since the get-go,” but they started with pop-ups to test the market first. As a former Homewood resident, Drake said he had thought for a while that Homewood would be the perfect site for Hero Doughnuts, but didn’t think it would be possible due to real estate availability and pricing. The location across from Central Park, with its heavy foot and vehicle traffic, was just icing on the cake — or doughnut.

“It would be one of my first picks. If I could look on a map and say, ‘I would love to have a shop here,’ … the location we’re opening is the location I would probably pick,” Drake said.

Hero Doughnuts will be open seven days a week, though Drake said they’ll likely continue a few pop-up events and appearances at Pepper Place. With a larger kitchen comes a lot more flexibility and the ability to create a greater quantity of their circular pastries, and Drake said he is looking forward to hiring additional people.

“We’ll have doughnuts available a lot more frequently now,” he said.

Plus, they can sell the doughnuts minutes after coming out of the oven, instead of traveling from their kitchen to the pop-up location. It’ll be “as fresh as you can get it, honestly,” Drake said. “I’m just excited to have people come to us instead of us always having to figure out a place to go pop-up.”

Drake said Hero Doughnuts will likely expand its menu as well, with breakfast sandwiches, Domestique Coffee and possibly a crispy fried chicken sandwich, along with some other planned surprises he wasn’t ready to reveal.

Design plans for the building are still in the works, but Drake said an important part is that customers will be able to see Hero Doughnuts employees mixing dough, cutting out doughnuts and pulling them out of the oven.

“We want people to be able to see the whole process,” Drake said.

Hero Doughnuts will be at 3207 Central Ave. Go to herodoughnuts.com or find them on social media to keep up with news on the storefront’s opening.