Donut Love sold: Goodwin Family Management, owners of Friendly Toast, purchase shops

NORTH HAMPTON — After five years of 100-hour work weeks making tens of thousands of their unique potato doughnuts, Mike and Stephanie Oliveira just sold their Donut Love business to Goodwin Family Management, the owner of New England’s Friendly Toast restaurants.

“The first time we chatted with Eric and Tyler (Goodwin), we knew that they were the perfect fit for Donut Love,” Stephanie Oliveira wrote on the couple’s Facebook page. “We know that they are going to take Donut Love, and make it thrive and grow to a place that Mike and I just couldn’t, as a small mom and pop.”

That small mom-and-pop donut shop began in 2016 in the Oliveira's home kitchen, making and selling their special potato doughnuts for friends and wholesale distribution. It fulfilled a dream Mike’s late mom had of opening a family bakery.

Mike, a North Hampton native and 17-year veteran of the North Hampton and Stratham police departments, would end up leaving law enforcement to work full time in this burgeoning business. Stephanie left her job as an MRI technologist at Boston Children’s Hospital to raise their newborn son, Cash.

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Fittingly, their wholesale kitchen bakery morphed into the retail Donut Love shop at 112 Lafayette Road in North Hampton when they signed a lease for the place in 2017 on Mother’s Day, opening on Mike’s late mom’s birthday, Aug. 11 that same year.

As its popularity grew, requiring more production space, the company expanded into Exeter, eventually opening Comfort Baking Company at 75 Portsmouth Ave. in Exeter, a large commercial kitchen and full-scale café.

But as their household also expanded, adding little Magnolia to the offspring mix of Cash and Mike’s 12-year-old twin boys Cooper and Logan, family time grew shorter and shorter, as Stephanie worked the front of the store with Mike hip-deep in doughnut making.

This June, the couple announced it was time to sell so they can spend more time with each other and their children, but they were looking for a buyer who would respect Donut Love’s legacy.

Previous story: Couple looking to sell Donut Love to ‘right person.’ Oliveiras explain why.

This week, the couple posted they’d sold to the Goodwins, who the Oliveiras believe will do exactly that because they “get it.”

Donut Love in good hands

According to Stephanie Oliveira, after reading her post about selling in June, one of the Goodwins’ management team who likes their doughnuts spoke to the Goodwins about buying the business. They then reached out to her husband.

“Mike had a phone call with them,” she said. “He told me after the call that ‘this seems right.’ We met with Eric and Tyler and everything seemed to align.”

According to the Oliverias, as owners of Friendly Toast, the Goodwins have the experience and expertise to run a successful food service business and do it with “heart, family first and incredible core values."

According to the Goodwin Family Management website, the Manchester-headquartered company is led by President Eric Goodwin, a “serial entrepreneur always looking for the next mountain to climb.” He began in 1999, when as an experienced restaurateur he opened a hospitality industry recruiting business. The family brand grew to include NOBL Beverages, and in 2013, he purchased Friendly Toast, then in Portsmouth and Cambridge, Mass.

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His son, Tyler, entered the family business in 2012, after graduating from UNH. According to the website, he currently serves as the chief operating officer “overseeing the day-to-day operations.”

Friendly Toast offers day-long brunch and dining “morning, noon and night” at its locations, according to its website. The Goodwins expanded the footprint of Friendly Toast to include restaurants in Burlington, Vermont, Bedford, New Hampshire, as well as the Burlington Mall, Danvers, North Andover, Dedham and Chestnut Hill, all in Massachusetts.

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However, according to Stephanie Oliveira, the Goodwins will be maintaining Donut Love under its current brand, and at both its locations in North Hampton and Exeter. She said the Goodwins have all the Donut Love recipes, which will remain the same as will the current production team.

What’s the Oliveiras' next move?

Mike Oliveira will remain as a consultant for a few weeks, to ensure a smooth transition, she said, then the Oliveiras will be spending quality family time together before deciding what comes next.

“But,” Stephanie Oliveira added laughing, “wearing a uniform of some sort may be in his future.”

Leaving Donut Love behind is bittersweet for both of them, she added, for it’s been their creation and a second home for the past five years.

Mike Oliveira put in his last shift at Donut Love last weekend, he wrote, adding he was “beyond grateful,” for the support of his wife and community, which made his and his late mom’s dream come true.

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“So as I say my final goodbye,” Oliveira posted, “Thank you. Thank you for all of your love the past five years. It’s truly been an honor and a privilege. I’m so blessed.”

Attempts to contact Eric and Tyler Goodwin for comment for this article were unsuccessful.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Exeter, North Hampton bakery Donut Love sold