What do you get when you combine 25 years of food service knowledge, a rained-out hiking trip and a chance visit to Portland’s purveyor of wacky pastry creations Voodoo Doughnuts?
If you’re Shannon Patten, you get Legendary Doughnuts, a newly opened bake shop in the Lakeland Hills Shopping Center.
According to Patten, the shop’s owner and head cook, the idea for opening a doughnut shop in her neighborhood began more than year ago when her family – husband and Sumner Police Officer Ken Patten and sons J.R., 17, and Christian, 10 – went on a hiking trip to Oregon.
“We were going to go hiking (over spring break) with the family and got rained out,” Shannon Patten said. “So we went to a doughnut store for the kids, and it just popped into our heads. We thought I’d take my knowledge of the food industry and apply it to doughnuts and make them higher quality, fun and something more than your typical doughnut shop menu.”
Inspired by Voodoo’s creations – which include a raspberry-blood-filled voodoo doll doughnut and several varieties topped with different kids’ cereals – Patten knew she could improve on the template by applying her love for quality ingredients and knowledge of the food service industry.
“When I saw this corner unit open, it really got my wheels turning,” she said. “We bounced around a lot of names and ‘Legendary’ really stuck. Then we thought we would name the doughnuts after different legends.
“So it was just a hodgepodge of sitting around at night looking at different books and tying in flavors that fit these different legends.”
Soon the ideas came fast and furious, with such creations as the Oprah, a maple bar topped with bacon; the Elvis, topped with peanut butter and banana chips; and the George Washington, a cake doughnut topped with chocolate cherry ganache and sliced almonds, making the menu.
You can try the Chunky Monkey or the AC/DC Back in Black glazed raised rings. There are the chocolate-rich Bill Gates cake doughnuts, the Yogi Bear bear claws, or the Shaquille Dunkers doughnut dots.
“The most popular for the children are the (cotton candy) Pink Panther and (Gummi Worms) Pig Pen,” Shannon Patten said. “The most popular for the adults is the Oprah. I couldn’t find a name for it. I had Albert Einstein with the coconut for the hair, and the Elvis with the peanut butter and banana. But we named (the maple bar) the Oprah because she’s obviously a legend and everybody likes her.”
Since opening the store more than a month ago, Shannon Patten said the response has been overwhelmingly positive.
“It’s been awesome. It’s been really, really great,” she said. “The community has been so supportive, and everybody is excited and happy we’re here. We really focus on the custom (doughnuts) as well. Our varieties change all the time, but with that we always keep a number of undressed doughnuts.”
According to Shannon Patten, that allows the shop to serve up old varieties.
“We’ll make it up for them and do it up however they want,” she said.
Intitially, Patten and her husband were apprehensive about going out on a limb and opening a store in these trying economic times.
“We were also very positive,” she said, “because I thought this was very affordable. People can come in and treat themselves and their family. We really wanted to make it a family, community atmosphere where people could come in and enjoy themselves.”
The shop offers birthday parties, where families can take advantage of the decorating bar to concoct their own legendary creations.
“I was very positive that we could make it work and be well accepted by the community,” Shannon Patten said.
The key, she said, was the incorporation of the higher-end products she peddled for her doughnuts from the Auburn-based Peterson Company, where she previously worked as a sales rep. Those ingredients include Belgian chocolate and pralines from Switzerland.
“There are just things that I fell in love with at Peterson that I want to incorporate for their quality,” she said.
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Legendary Doughnuts is located at the Lakeland Hills/Top Foods Shopping Center at 1410 Lake Tapps Parkway E. Menu and operating hours can be viewed at www.legendarydoughnuts.com.
