‘They’re good, they’re really good.’ Our readers crown the Triangle’s top doughnut.
One time, Sowadi Chea noticed a woman sobbing softly over an apple fritter.
Before she left Chea’s Durham doughnut shop she told him it had reminded her of her favorite fritter, one she ate growing up in upstate New York, a memory encased in a thin sheen of sweet glaze and punctuated with cinnamon.
“It’s touching,” Chea said of those moments. “That’s the best part of the job. Food is a magical thing, it’s special.”
In a runaway, voters have declared Chea’s Early Bird Donuts the winner of the Triangle Doughnut Bracket, prevailing as the area’s favorite doughnut shop. Early Bird collected 89% of the final vote to take the doughnut crown over runner-up Duck Donuts.
Chea said he’s grateful for the doughnut love and thousands of votes, but said the crown is a heavy thing to wear.
“I think they’re good, they’re really good,” Chea said. “But there are a lot of really good doughnuts out there.”
Early doughnut dreams
Early Bird opened in Durham in 2017 in the Erwin Terrace development near Duke University Hospital and the school’s west campus.
But Chea’s doughnut dreams began a decade earlier. In 2007 he graduated from Boston’s Northeastern University with a degree in graphic design. He found a world in the beginning stages of a recession and scarce on jobs.
“I couldn’t find anything for a year,” Chea said. “Then an uncle had moved from California to Little Rock to open a doughnut shop and gave me a call. He said, ‘Look, come down here, you can learn a new trade.’ I had nothing to lose.”
Growing up in the Northeast, Chea’s childhood connection to doughnuts was Dunkin’ Donuts, he said. Locations of the chain would sometimes pop up across the street from each other.
“If you went over to someone’s house, there was always a box of Dunkins,” Chea said, noting his favorite was the coconut yeast. “That was just a New England thing.”
Chea’s uncle had learned to make doughnuts in the California doughnut scene, which is 80% owned by Cambodian immigrants, he said. The origin of that legacy is traced to Ted Ngoy, a Cambodian refugee whose story is chronicled in the PBS documentary “The Donut King.”
“It’s a fascinating story,” said Chea, whose family is Cambodian. “It’s one not a lot of people outside of California and Texas know about.”
‘We focus on the classics’
After three months of working for his uncle, Chea opened his own shop, calling it Early Bird Donuts. Around 10 years ago, Chea sold the shop and moved to the Triangle, opening the new Early Bird in 2017.
“The way I describe it, it’s a California style,” Chea said. “We focus on the classics, everything is made fresh. I just make what I think tastes good to me.”
The classics include a plain glazed as light and crispy as anything else in the doughnut world. Really.
The case includes a mix of cake and yeast doughnuts, including sour cream old fashioneds and blueberry, plus strawberry sprinkle, maple bacon and filled ones with sweet lemon curd or Bavarian cream.
“It’s almost like a comfort food,” Chea said. “It’s a special treat. Almost everyone I know, they have a story that relates to doughnuts.”
Chea said for his wife, doughnuts are a reminder of getting a chocolate cake doughnut after dance class growing up.
Through the doors of Early Bird, Chea sees a sweet side of a typical Durham day. Plastic surgeons stop in, construction workers, nurses from nearby Duke Hospital grabbing doughnuts after a 12-hour shift. On the weekends it’s young families, kids wearing baseball cleats after a T-ball game, Duke students cramming for an exam.
“Everyone seems happy,” Chea said.
One of Early Bird’s regulars is former Duke University men’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, Chea said, who would stop in on Sundays after church for glazed doughnuts and cinnamon rolls before the pandemic.
“One time he was waiting in line and half the people didn’t notice him,” Chea said of the basketball legend. “Then a Duke student came in and took a look and freaked out.”
The “early” in Early Bird sometimes means Chea arrives at the shop at midnight to prepare for busy days. Even now, after a decade of making doughnuts, he’s still negotiating the mix, he said, continuing to dial it closer to perfection. In the summer months that means wrestling with a dough that rises too fast, tormented by Durham’s humidity.
“It’s not quite an obsession,” Chea said. “We’re always tweaking the recipe, trying to find the perfect ratio.”
Chea said he built Early Bird to be the kind of place that makes regulars, where they learn names and orders and the shop feels like something that’s shared rather than owned. He can’t say he’s shocked to be named the area’s favorite doughnut shop.
“I’m happy that people took the time to vote for us, but I’m not surprised,” Chea said. “I’m 40 years old, but I remember a time when you went out to eat and the people who worked there would remember your name and your kids’ names. .... I guess I try to instill those values.”
The runner up: Duck Donuts
At the start of the Triangle Doughnut Bracket, it seemed guaranteed that a famous, North Carolina-based doughnut giant would end up in the final.
That ended up happening, but it wasn’t Krispy Kreme.
Duck Donuts has grown from a quaint beach-side destination on the Outer Banks to an international doughnut empire, with more than 100 locations across North America.
Brandon and Kelly Trimyer own the three Triangle Duck Donuts locations. Some people bring seashells back from the beach, but they brought a craving for doughnuts.
“My husband and I started as fans,” said Kelly Trimyer. “We were just customers lining up at the beach with everyone else.”
Kelly Trimyer has a background in non-profits and Brandon works in healthcare.
After a 2013 trip to the Outer Banks, Kelly said they noticed the franchise tab on the Duck Donuts website. They opened their first location the next year in Cary, with two more following.
“It just screamed Cary for us,” Kelly Trimyer said. “What struck out to us, looking back almost 10 years, is it was customizeable. The base is delicious, it’s not a heavy cake doughnut, but you can do whatever you want with it.”
Duck Donuts is famous for making its doughnuts to order, starting with a freshly fried up base, then topped with icings and sprinkles and bacon bits and nuts.
“We thought of doughnuts as a treat,” Trimyer said. “It’s not an everyday thing, but something special, an affordable luxury to have with coffee.”
There are two Triangle Duck Donuts locations on the way, Trimyer said, with the first likely to open next year.
“There have been a lot of challenges (in the last couple years),” Trimyer said. “We’re really flattered that the community still loves us.”
This story was originally published April 22, 2022 at 4:02 PM with the headline "‘They’re good, they’re really good.’ Our readers crown the Triangle’s top doughnut.."
