E14: From Weekend Help to Donut Empire: Gary VanderStelt of Sprinkles Donuts

From Weekend Help to Donut Empire: Gary VanderStelt of Sprinkles Donuts | The Perfect Rise Podcast

What happens when the kid who swore he’d never work in a bakery ends up running one of the busiest donut operations in Michigan?

In this episode of The Perfect Rise, Chef Kimberly Houston sits down with Gary VanderStelt, owner of Sprinkles Donuts, to talk about how a family legacy turned into a full-blown donut empire—complete with 8+ locations, a 14,000-square-foot kitchen, and over 500,000 donuts produced every month.

Gary shares how he transitioned from weekend fryer shifts to full-time founder, what it takes to scale with quality, and why their mission to "create sweet memories" is baked into every decision, from hand-cut cinnamon rolls to a ready-to-thaw donut line now heading to grocery shelves.

👉 IN THIS CONVERSATION:
• Why Gary originally said he’d never work in a bakery
• How Sprinkles scaled from a single fryer to a production powerhouse
• The real challenges of hiring and managing across 9 locations
• Lessons in leadership, legacy, and loving what you do
• The frozen donut journey: what worked, what flopped, and what’s next

Whether you're a bakery owner, donut lover, or aspiring entrepreneur, this episode will leave you inspired (and maybe a little hungry).

🎧 Listen now and subscribe for more stories from behind the counter.

Learn more about the Retail Bakers of America
🌐 https://www.retailbakersofamerica.org/

Learn more about Sprinkles Donuts
🌐 https://sprinklesdonutshop.com/

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Chapters

• 0:00 The Journey Begins: From Bakery to Business Owner
• 7:09 Building a Legacy: Family and Community in Business
• 14:08 Scaling Up: Transitioning to Frozen Products
• 18:09 Quality Control: Maintaining Standards Across Locations
• 25:10 Hiring Challenges: Finding the Right People
• 35:50 Final Thoughts: Passion and Perseverance in Entrepreneurship

Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:00.98)
What happens when the kid who swore he'd never work in a bakery grows up to make half a million donuts a month? Today on The Perfect Rise, we're joined by Gary Vanderstelt, owner of Sprinkles Donuts in Michigan. A business that started as a small family shop and has grown into a multi-location powerhouse with a booming frozen donut program for national grocers. Gary's journey is the kind of story you don't hear every day.

He left the bakery world for a different career path only to return, weekends at first and eventually full-time, launching Sprinkles with his dad in 2014. What began as a modest operation now spans nine buildings, a 14,000 square foot production facility, and over 100 team members. And they're just getting started. In this episode, Gary shares the real behind the scenes look at scaling a bakery.

while staying hands-on with quality control, navigating hiring challenges, and holding tight to the heart of the business, community, culture, and creating sweet memories. Whether you're a small shop dreaming of growth or simply curious about what it takes to thrive in this industry, this conversation is a must-listen. Let's dive in.

Speaker 2 (01:21.25)
Hello and welcome back everyone to The Perfect Rise. This is Chef Kimberly Houston and today I am joined by Gary VanderSelt of Sprinkles Donuts in Michigan. How are you?

I am fantastic. Thanks.

Thank you for joining me today. So you are one of our esteemed bakery owners here at the RBA. I was super excited to come across your bakery when I was kind of going through our portal of bakery owners. I think your story is incredible. So the first thing I want to start with is learning about the family story because your dad started the company, correct? Yes. Okay.

So your dad started baking in the 50s and even though you once said you never followed in his footsteps, here you are. So what changed for you?

You know, I'm not even sure because when I was a kid, you know, I worked at my dad's bakery, you know, in elementary school, middle school, high school. And I don't remember learning to make a donut. It's just something I just always remember knowing how to. and I'm sure when I was a kid, I was mostly just in the way, but I remember Friday nights going to the bakery and. know, it was in a small town on like main street and you know, the old building and he made great.

Speaker 1 (02:39.362)
donuts and he made it was a full service bakery. made Danish and breads and, it's a small community and it was just great. And I just remember going there and doing stuff with him and, you know, probably falling asleep at some point and going home in the morning and probably sleeping it off. But, when I was getting older, I'm like, man, I'm not going to work nights and I'm never going to work on bakery because it's just not my thing. So I, went to college.

and still worked on weekends at my dad's bakery. Had a different career for about 25 years. And when I would get out of work on Friday night, I would dress business casual at work. I would have a t-shirt and some other clothes. Friday nights I'd drive out to my dad's bakery and work till six o'clock Saturday morning, every weekend. And in 2014, he sold his bakery and

After three months of retirement, realized he couldn't afford to be retired and that he didn't want to be retired. And he said, he's going to open a little donut shop. So I had said to him, I'll, I'll, I'll partner with you. And when we opened sprinkles, it was my dad, my sister, my nephew, me, a few friends that worked in retail for us. Then a few friends, you know, kids, was just a small little donut shop. when we would buy inventory.

It would fit like a six foot gladiator rack with two shelves. That was it. and then after doing that for a couple of years, I quit my other career, January 5th of 2018. And ever since that day, other than national holidays, I work seven days a week and I work nights. So I don't know what changed. I'm glad it changed. I really love what I do now. And,

Definitely have zero regrets and yeah, we're just growing, growing really fast. Right now we were making probably.

Speaker 1 (04:46.318)
If I'm doing a really bad math, probably around half a million donuts a month. And my dad, when we started, and even before Sprinkles, my dad's old bakery, if I were standing at the kettle fryer or the kettle fryer, the Bell Shaw, like a 24 by 24 inch fryer, if I took a step backwards, we would bump each other because he was facing the other way, cutting cinnamon fries or chopping fritters. It was the tiniest little bakery. And when we opened Sprinkles.

We even tried leasing a much smaller space. Like there was a space for lease. We tried leasing just half the depth because we're like, this place is just massive. Like we don't need all this space. And when we opened, was like, and we have old pictures. It's like a big space with shiny new floors and like a mixer, a single fryer, a single small used sheeter and a bench. And it was like an empty space.

And probably a year later, we're like, man, we're glad we had all this space. And then a couple of years later, we moved to a, right now we're in a 14,000 square foot central kitchen. And, right now we're out of space. So we're right now planning to build a new kitchen that we hope to start next year. But, but back to your question, I don't know how it happened because it's, I had zero interest as a.

young person. I think I liked it in like elementary school and middle school, high school, man. I remember even after high school and college, never sleeping. I get out of work at six in the morning, sleep for two hours and friends would call me and we'd go do stuff. Then I'd go straight to work. I know there were many days where it was like two days of no sleep because between work, school and going out with friends. But yeah, something happened.

And I'm certainly glad I'm at Sprinkles and I definitely love what I do.

Speaker 2 (06:48.96)
You have to, you literally have to love what it is that you're doing. So that leads me into my next question, right? So most people can't imagine going from weekends in a bakery to running eight locations and working the third shift. So what drives you and keeps you going day after day?

I would say the love of doing this. And it's funny, we tried for, or I personally tried for probably six months thinking, what is our mission statement? Like we're making donuts, not the healthiest thing to eat. It's more of a, you know, a fun treat once in a while. And I'm like, what is our mission? And then it hit me one day. I was in a retail area and there was, looked like

regenerations that look like some young kids, but their parents and their grandparents. And we would make just for fun, like giant donuts, put them in a box and then give them to kids like they're mistake donuts. So I walked out there with this box and told these little kids like, Hey, we have some mistake donuts. Would you like them? And they're like, sure. And they open it up into their surprises, like a giant, really cool donut. And the, the,

The father who I believe there's their father had mentioned like, man, when I was a kid, my dad sitting right across me, we would on Saturday mornings, first thing we do is go to our local donut shop and get like a donut and you know, you know, have a space where we can connect and talk. And they were saying like my kids, when they wake up, they don't want to, you know, get on their computer or get on their tablet. On Saturday mornings, they want to go to Sprinkles and grab a donut. So.

Our mission became, you know, to create sweet memories. And I think that's part of it. I think the other part of it is we have a little over a hundred employees, but just getting to know them and work with them every day. Matt, who works here, he's been here almost 10 years. Dean's been here like eight years. So we, you build this relationship with people and it's a, it's a unique thing to have.

Speaker 1 (09:06.29)
And my son, he's pretty young, but he's a manager here. And I think he's young. He's 19. He's one year out of high school. And his plan is to take over Sprinkles and he works hard. doesn't, he doesn't behave like a 19 year old. And, and I have, I'm not pushing him to do this at all. It was his choice. And he's really, I would say he works more like an adult than a, you know,

young person. So I think that's part of it. It's really fun to work with family and, you know, work with some of our long term employees and, you know, just be part of their, you know, lives. So it's a really unique thing. And I think it's, I think people are kind of born to be an entrepreneur. And somehow I think I gathered that from my parents, my dad, since he was a young guy owned bakeries and they were both small. He had a small bakery.

in Coopersville, Michigan, and then a small bakery in Muskegon, Michigan. And I think I just got his DNA where I have that drive. And I think my young son is kind of following along in those same footsteps. It's funny. My dad's bakery that he sold, he had for almost 30 years and he retired and sold it. And the person that bought it ended up after a couple of years closing it. So.

We bought the building and we opened up a Sprinkles and the building where my dad's bakery was for 30 years. So that's a pretty cool thing. And it's funny. My dad had a big family and two days a week. If you want to have a family reunion, I'll go to the store because it's aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews. And so it's a, it's a community place. And I think it's just a pretty special.

that, particularly when we think about, I've talked to a lot of people on the podcast about like, you know, what keeps you going while you're doing this, right? Like it's long hours and it's not the norm. Like it takes special people to be entrepreneurs and it's always community. Like that is like the driving force of our industry is that the community keeps me here. Like they're what drives me. And I love it. So I do have questions about like, what does this look like for you?

Speaker 2 (11:30.004)
inside the business. going from retail to a ready to thaw grocery product is a huge shift. So what sparked that idea and what have you learned from entering that side of the market?

So once we opened our central kitchen, we definitely have the ability to produce much higher volume than we produce today. So we have a conveyor fryer and we're evolving from my dad's bakery with flipping donuts in a kettle fryer and bumping each other if you take two steps to a pretty big space with pretty modern equipment. And we were approached by another company to

produced frozen product. So all of our stores, it's all, we make fresh every day, but we also run later in the evening, frozen donuts for a national grocer. We sell them to another company and then they're selling to the grocery stores. And it's going to be really big for us. It was a big change though. And it's still a big learning curve. Making a chocolate

that can freeze and thaw is hard. And it's funny, we would talk to techs from different suppliers and you know, we're using AI, we're Googling it. And I'm like, you know what? We just need to figure this out. A glaze that will freeze and thaw, it's just hard. And for us, we're still not very big. So when we're making hot glaze, we're using like

gallon scoops to move it from one place to another versus like, don't have a bowl lift, but we're looking for a lift. you know, we have one transfer pump, but it's hard to use that transfer pump to go from like a glaze to a roll icing to a Bavarian cream. So I guess it was a big change initially, but it's, we're still figuring it out. And what's great is we're shipping these frozen donuts and they work.

Speaker 1 (13:40.32)
really, really well and they're finished, ready to serve. You just need to let them thaw for a while. But we're still like, I would say this week we're making more test chocolate to see if we can get like the chocolate to thaw and dry quicker. So I would say it's still a big learning curve. And I did post some, you know, questions on RBA's website. You know, I get some advice from some people and

I think I'm as active as I can be. I'm still stuck working in the kitchen a lot. but you know, if you ask me next month, I'm sure we're to learn some different techniques that make the product even a little better or follow faster. I'm, I'm just really excited for IBIE this year because we have a laundry list of equipment we want and we have to figure out how to.

how to make that happen. So I'm really excited. There's three of us going this year and yeah, I'm stoked for that show. We also go to like PacExpo because we need packaging equipment. And for us, the biggest challenge is probably the financing to get the equipment we need. So we have a really nice L-Bar Steeler and then the company we're making the frozen product for.

We have their taping machine. So they have some of our equipment for some stuff. We have some of their equipment. So we're kind of sharing some resources, but yeah, we're learning every day. And as soon as we can afford more equipment, we're, you know, we're looking for a new heated glazer that will give us three of them and. I don't want another spiral mixer, you know, so we're just, I would say if you were at Sprinkles right now, you'd think there's a lot of chaos because they're moving.

They're moving fast. originally we have several key people that's allowing us to move real fast. You know, we have, you know, a couple people, you know, that they get in trouble all the time because they're here too much. There's a guy named Jacob. I'm like, Jacob, you've been here 20 hours. If you don't leave, you're going to be in serious trouble. Nobody ignores me. He just keeps working. And I'm like, we can't do this. You know, this isn't something we can do long-term, but, uh,

Speaker 1 (16:03.896)
But yeah, figuring out the frozen part, it's a big effort and we're successful today, but we're going to improve as we grow more. And, you know, we want this new kitchen so we can really increase the volume. want a new kitchen where we're making millions of donuts a month, you know? So that too is going to be a whole new set of things to learn.

Yes, that's exciting though!

I'm so excited. I wish my dad passed away in 2018. He grew up small donut shops. You know, he was very happy to have his last bakery in Muskegon and be able to afford a pretty small house and have a truck and just he was happy and that's great. I'm happy where we're at.

But I think my goal is different. We want to be, you know, a company where, you know, we're able to employ hundreds of people with great salaries and great benefits. have an environment where people love the culture and, and it's, it's funny. This Sprinkles is probably the most diverse company I've ever worked for. In my other career, I worked for

Some big companies, the largest company I worked for had almost 90,000 people. Sprinkles is, I swear, more diverse than any company probably in West Michigan. And I love it. So yeah, it's going to keep being a crazy ride here.

Speaker 2 (17:47.918)
I'm super excited to meet you in person at IBIE. I'll be there. I'll be running around. I will definitely be in the RBA booth every day that we're there. So can we talk about you staying hands-on in production? How do you manage quality control and consistency across all eight locations while still innovating?

So it's not easy and we're definitely not perfect. We had a meeting today about our cinnamon rolls because we're still hand cutting. So we sheet the dough, we roll them up and we're hand cutting them. And because of that, they're not going to be perfect every time. So we try every day to implement continuous improvement processes. we really want like an automated quality assurance.

program in place. And that's one of our big goals is create new systems. So it could be inventory, could be quality control, it could be logistics. And that, that's my day job, I guess. So I'm here usually early afternoon until early evening. And that's my time to try to work on that stuff, like systems and, you know, and other things like

Administrative things. just opened a new store. Monday was our first day. Uh, and we have a drive-through, which is new for us. it's, wow, we got to learn and, you know, and trust me, the first day it didn't go off as well. The drive-through digital board just said like, Hey, welcome to Sprinkles. It didn't have our whole menu on there. So we're still figuring it out. And then I usually go home for dinner for a couple hours and hang out. And then I come back anywhere between 10 and midnight. And that's when it's.

a little bit more of like process work and then more hands-on work. And I just feel lucky that our leadership team in the kitchen are passionate about their jobs. They're committed to sprinkles and without a good team, we couldn't have the quality. Even if we had systems in place, would be a big issue. And it's funny, we, when we first opened, made

Speaker 1 (20:06.54)
you know, chocolate and Bavarian cream. Then we got too big because when we'd make Bavarian cream, we had like an induction cooker with two warmers. So we made like two buckets at a time. Once we started growing, we started buying Bavarian cream. It was the best Bavarian cream we could find. And about two months ago, we started making it again because we bought a big steam kettle and we're able to make it in volume now. And we just have the right team that's

ready to go and, you know, really help this journey grow. And I'm just, I think it's the team and, and I think it's also, you know, it's, that's my dad's legacy. I don't have them ready, but I have in my drawer right next to me, you know, his recipes and they're, they're old, man. They're, so ginger sugar cookie. I don't know how old it says, but it's, it's ancient. So.

All of these are digitized, but I think that's part of it is we're pretty much making things the way my dad did back in the day. Obviously there's adjustments, but I love the fact we're going back to making more of our products that we use instead of buying them. And that's another way we can really control quality. you the Bavarian cream a little thicker, we can adjust our recipes.

for the frozen product that has Bavarian cream, can tweak it so it performs better, maybe thaws a little quicker. But I just love the point where we're at now because I felt for the longest time in our area, you can't beat our donuts. And people ask me sometimes like, hey, why are your donuts different? And I kind of tell them the same way because we do them the same way. We've done them for 70 years. That's the big one.

And the other is quality ingredients. So I remember in 2016, man, just working so hard, trying to find a fry shortening that worked when they eliminated partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. didn't like what we were using and we were trying to figure it out. We've navigated through that. So we use a great shortening and all of our other ingredients. We, tried different things and I think we just keep focusing on great product and.

Speaker 1 (22:34.382)
And again, part of the grind is figure out how to build better systems so things are more consistent and just flow better. But even in our retail stores, our managers, they're just so passionate. I just talked to her, her name is Darlene. She's been here, she started as a fryer, long time ago. She's a district manager now, but if you see her, she's wearing sprinkles gear and

carrying a sprinkles bag. you talk to Maureen, her fingernails are all done as like donuts with sprinkles. And I'm like, I don't know how we got to this point, like how we got so lucky to have such great people. But I would say that's at least half of our success is having great people here.

Incredible. it sounds, it sounds to me from the outside looking in, like you've created a culture that says like, yes, this is a business and yes, this is a company, but the culture of the place that people work, it's a place they want to be.

We try. We try every day. And it's funny, even customers at our central kitchen, we do tours every week, mainly for kids or for senior groups. And they're blown away. It's funny, at the end of the tour, the seniors are like, we'll never go to another bakery because this is amazing. And we tell them all like, hey, as long as it's in the evening, if you ring our doorbell,

You always can get a free donut. So every night we'll have a doorbell ring and we'll, some people we just know like the guy that came in last name last night, he gets a maple cinnamon roll. Like I could literally at 3.30 in the morning hear the doorbell. I'll grab a, on a certain day of the week, I'll grab a maple cinnamon roll. Yeah. So yeah, I think it is a culture. think it's a culture for our team and kind of a culture for our customers.

Speaker 2 (24:31.018)
And you so it is.

Speaker 2 (24:41.11)
Yes, I love that. So we talked about several different pieces of this journey and I like have a bazillion questions, even ones I didn't send you ahead of time. but I think what I'm wondering about, what I think our audience would love to know is to go from not necessarily wanting to like work in a bakery as a kid to now doing it. At what point were you like,

Okay, not only are we doing this, but we're like about to dominate while we're doing this. Like what did that moment feel like or look like for you when you were like, no, no, no, this is what we're

Really? You know, I don't think it was a moment because even when we started this with my dad, when my dad was alive, he ran the kitchen. When I would come in, I'm like, Hey, what do you want me to do? And he would always give me the groundwork. I had to go hit the fryer or I'd go ice donuts or I'd clean and I was, I will do whatever. And today, if we're short, I'll run down. I'll ask our floor manager, where do you, where do you need help? And I'll, I'll, I'll do whatever. Um, but I think even when we opened our first door, when we had this kitchen that was

pretty much empty, just a fryer, mixer, sheeter and bench. We had goals and the goal back then was five retail stores in five years. And then every January we review our strategy, like our five year strategy. And I would say it was spot on every year. And back then the plan was build this in West Michigan where we have.

whatever the number is, eight stores in a central kitchen and get things really dialed in and then duplicate it somewhere else. So that was the old plan. So we were thinking, Hey, maybe Atlanta, maybe Austin, Texas, maybe Detroit, Michigan, wherever, Duplicated. And when we started down this frozen donut path for grocers, it all took a big shift because

Speaker 1 (26:49.202)
I think there's a giant demand for a great donut in a store. Now we're not making donuts that are in boxes. We're making donuts that a grocer would pull out of the freezer, put on display and their don't and customers would grab them from their self-serve case. and I think that is the model. So for years, retail and duplicate in different regions. Now it's.

love the area we're in in West Michigan and continue to be involved with the community here and then focus on these frozen as a separate like entity. I think if we build a new kitchen, it'll be like a Sprinkles frozen, you know, or for Sprinkles wholesale company. But, so I kind of think we're, it wasn't an aha moment because I think it was the natural plan. And even if I thought I was going to stay doing my other career,

think in the back of my mind, it was gonna transition. The only thing that was a real eye-opener for me, I thought by being part of this with my dad, things could be managed from a keyboard. I thought, hey, my dad had these bakeries his whole life and he worked so hard making product. I thought is you just need to

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 (28:16.462)
good manager and you can run it differently. I was completely wrong. I used to tease my dad when he was alive. I'm like, dad, you need a manager, you need to delegate. My famous words to my dad is, you don't delegate enough. I realized what he did for his whole life working in a bakery, you don't run it from a clipboard.

At least not at our size. So I think the big aha moment was, you know what? I, I, I'm going to be in the kitchen in that floor helping seven days a week because one, have demand and two, we're always short people. So I guess the bigger aha moment was you're going to get your hands dirty if you want to be successful. And I think down the road, maybe in a couple of years when we have that larger.

kitchen, there's probably going to be more meetings and less physical work. But right now it's, I would say it's physical seven days a week. that was the big, like, that's not what I thought it would be like. Which I'm happy. I am with my career. I'm happier now than I've ever been. And so I was just wrong thinking my dad should have been delegating and, you know, sitting in an office and I didn't want to do that, but.

But I realized, he was, he was running the ship and he had to be part of the process or he wouldn't have been successful. And I think if I weren't helping as much as I do, think right now we would be successful because we do have really great people. the first eight or nine years, know, my favorite Donate to Cut the Simmon Roll, my second favorite is the Apple Fritter. And every day it was.

cutting donuts and frying donuts and decorating donuts every day. And now it's a lot less, but that was the big crazy thing to me. Like, wow, it's a lot of work and there's also a lot of satisfaction.

Speaker 2 (30:32.77)
Yes, I love that. I love your vantage point of still being in the business. And it's still like giving you that same inspiration like it does when a new person first opens their bakery. You're like, no, I live here. Like this is my passion. This is the thing I'm doing. And I love that years later, like you still have that same level of energy.

Yeah, and you know what I really do think that it's some people are entrepreneurs and I think most people aren't. So if you're an entrepreneur, you're probably whether this could be a company installing swimming pools. If you're going to be successful, you're going to be you're going to be working hard. And it's weird, I think just like my dad, my dad definitely

My mom would always say, your dad, just never stops working. And I think that's part of that entrepreneurial DNA that your mind's always going a hundred miles an hour. you know, heck, have projects right now. I even told people, no new great ideas, no new products. We have so many great ideas. We got to execute on these and stop thinking of new ones. And there are so many good ideas.

Maybe half our great ideas, maybe the other half are terrible, but we have so many ideas. We got to just stop and just focus on the good ones. And we have a couple right now where we're going there. I'll tell you about it. RBA or at IBIE. They are phenomenal. I cannot wait to get these rolled out. And my only complaint is when you have a lot of ideas and you have a handful of great people that help execute on those ideas.

Everything takes longer than you want it to take. I wish it was like this project I'm going to tell you about. I wish it was done today and it's going to be a couple months, but yeah, I'm excited. And the first booth I go to in IBAE will be your booth. So I'm definitely going to go up and meet your person.

Speaker 2 (32:41.952)
Yes, come find me at the RBA booth. Yeah, wait, I'll be there. You won't be able to miss me, promise. I'll be there, dancing, making noise. I love it so much. I have one more question for you. And this is for people who are listening and they, maybe they have some growing pains. Maybe they want to like expand and have more than one location.

one of the things that people have said a lot to me traveling to different bakeries this summer on the road was people are trying to understand, hiring and managing staff. Right. So you've got eight locations plus the central location. Is that right? Or is it eight plus the central, so nine total. So what are some of the biggest lessons in hiring and managing staff across multiple locations?

Yep,

Speaker 1 (33:34.412)
Well, you're not going to want to hear this, but to me, 80 % of hires probably aren't very good hires. So, people used to give me a rough time at sprinkles like Gary, you hire the worst people. You know, the, the, great people are like, my word. This person is like, they don't show up most of the time and they're late all the time and they don't care about the product quality. Like, well, some of those people now are doing the hiring.

And they're realizing like, it's hard to find good people. And thankfully we have a lot of those great people here, but most, lot of hires aren't going to be good. So my advice to anybody is just keep trying because you're going to find a couple of people that might not be the best hire, but then you're going to find that one person. And when you do, don't lose that person. And that's where I'm at.

There may be a handful of people here. I'm like, man, my life would be so difficult. If we lost those people, sprinkles is going to keep going. mean, if I left tomorrow, sprinkles are going to keep going. It's going to be harder. Those other couple of people. It's going to be hard. a lot of people that won't be quite as hard. So my advice is keep trying. And I'm telling you.

In West Michigan, I don't know about other parts of the country, but it is super hard to hire or find people. I would say we've been in a situation where maybe 20 % of applicants that apply for a position and we talk to them actually show up for an interview. It's been brutal in our area. So my advice, keep trying and I'm telling you.

Thankfully, we have several people that are unbelievable. And even some people that are just part-time, we have some part-timers that work here for a little while before they go to their other jobs. They're amazing. I'm just so fortunate. people are having a hard time. You'll find those people. It just takes time.

Speaker 2 (35:50.21)
Yes, I think that's perfect because that's real talk. We don't want people to think that like, everything's gonna be rainbows and unicorns and sprinkles. It might not be. It might not be, but don't give up. Don't give up. I love that. I love these conversations with members of the RBA because we get knowledge and information that we wouldn't typically have access to just like working in your bakery.

Where else do you get to hear this type of story? So thank you so much for sharing it with us. I know our audience is going to appreciate this. We will make sure we link below in all of our things to the Sprinkles Dumbnuts, all of them. So if you're in the area, make sure you go by and visit. I'm going to make sure I come by and visit when I'm in Michigan. I'm going tell Marissa, I hope to have a road show in Michigan so we can come see.

Even if you're driving through at night the doorbell just hit the doorbell come on

I love everything about that. Gary, thank you so much for joining me today on the RVA Bygass.