Donut Love is growing its empire with new location in downtown Newmarket

NEWMARKET — Donut Love is expanding to Newmarket, opening its first new location since being purchased by the owners of the Friendly Toast.

The new storefront at 12 Weaver St. Unit C is between the restaurant Kume and local beermakers Deciduous Brewing Company. Donut Love’s owners, Goodwin Family Management, hope the doughnut shop can contribute to Newmarket’s vibrant downtown.

“They’ve done a really good job making it a welcoming, artsy, fun place to be,” said Tyler Goodwin, chief operating officer of the management company. “We’re just hoping to add to that.”

The new location is expected to open in February. It will be the third Donut Love location and the first new storefront opened by Goodwin Family Management since it took over the company in 2022. It bought Donut Love and its sister store, Comfort Baking Company, with plans to turn Donut Love into a regional chain with locations in towns within approximately 20 minutes from their production kitchen at the Exeter store.

Goodwin said the opportunity in Newmarket came up in the fall and was a perfect next step in their vision.

“We knew we wanted to grow,” Goodwin said. “When this place popped up, it really hit all of the checkmarks for us.”

Previous story: Donut Love owners have big plans on Seacoast to compete with Dunkin', Starbucks

Donut Love got its start in North Hampton

The first Donut Love location was opened by founder Mike Oliveira in 2017 across the street from the Shel-Al Campground. He opened the store in honor of his late mother, Kathy, who died from cancer. He had left behind a law enforcement career in pursuit of work he found to be more uplifting. He also opened Comfort Baking Company in 2021.

Oliveira decided to sell Donut Love in 2022 to move on from the long hours that Donut Love and Comfort Baking demanded. He connected with the Goodwin family, which has also been involved with the Friendly Toast. Goodwin’s father is a partner in owning the Friendly Toast, which has 11 locations including Portsmouth and throughout New England.

The new owners decided to rebrand Comfort Baking as a new Donut Love and redo the kitchen so it could handle production for both Donut Love stores and future locations. The Exeter Donut Love reopened in August with new menu items, including different doughnut styles and breakfast items like frittatas, yogurts and hand pies.

With the kitchen ready for large-scale production in Exeter, Goodwin said the time was right to look for new locations. The Newmarket space, he said, was a good fit for its combination of pedestrian and vehicular traffic.

“We wanted to expand. We’ve got a great team in place,” Goodwin said. “It all put us in a good spot to consider an expansion.”

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Donut Love finding success under new ownership

When work began on remodeling the Exeter location last year, Goodwin said the hope was for Donut Love to compete with other breakfast places like Starbucks and Dunkin’ for a place in people’s morning routine. Goodwin said sales have risen since Exeter reopened.

Goodwin said Donut Love has also taken on catering as a significant part of its business model. He said they have since been booked for a growing number of events like birthday parties and weddings.

Goodwin believes those factors have Donut Love poised for success in the Seacoast as they prepare to launch their Newmarket location.

“It’s going well,” Goodwin said. “I think more and more people in the Exeter community are discovering us, essentially.”

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Donut Love to open new location in downtown Newmarket NH