SIOUX CITY - Sarah Kragthorpe's voice rises as she explains the long-lost Sioux City tradition she's bringing back.
"If you were a child and got a couple of Sunshine doughnuts and a ride on Sandy, the penny pony at Indian Hills after church, you were in heaven," she says.
Kragthorpe tracked down the very doughnut machine and makers who satisfied these sweet cravings for four generations. And she's got it working for her new Jitters location, 4021 Floyd Blvd.
"The doughnut machine came out of the Indian Hills SuperValue, which was the former Sunshine Food Market before it closed," she says. "It's the original machine they used to make the Sunshine doughnuts."
How and why did she track down a retired doughnut machine?
Answer No. 1: "Our first Jitters location was next to the grocery store," she says. "The machine was sold at auction when the store closed. The landlord bought it and hoped they could get that old cafe (inside the grocery store at Indian Hills) up and running again, so they held on to it."
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Little happened over the ensuing years, prompting Kragthorpe to call. The owners of the machine agreed to lease it, rather than sell it.
"We've had it about five weeks," she says.
Answer No. 2, referring to the why portion of the question: "We sold 255 dozen Sunshine doughnuts over the weekend," Kragthorpe says.
Pardon the medical expression in these flu-fledged days, but this machine has been a shot in the arm for the coffee shop. Or, maybe more correct, it's been a ray of 'Sunshine.'
"It is absolutely helping the coffee business," says Kragthorpe, who started her coffee/ sandwich/soup/dessert shop a decade ago. "We'd go through maybe one pot of brewed coffee per day and on Saturday we were on our sixth pot by the time we closed."
About those doughnuts
What makes a Sunshine doughnut unique? It's a cake doughnut, not raised doughnut. There is a difference.
"The raised doughnut is lighter, more air-filled," Kragthorpe says. "Cake doughnuts have a little more substance."
Marilyn Wilson, who operated the cafe within the SuperValue store at Indian Hills and ran the doughnut-maker for two decades, came to Jitters to teach Tim Stanek exactly how to make a Sunshine. Stanek creates the dough from scratch, whips up the frosting and keeps a close eye on various temperature and time readings.
If you go
Jitters at 4021 Floyd Blvd., Sioux City, is open 7 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday and 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday. For information, call (712) 255-9211.
