A strong work ethic is the foundation of Bill Miller's world
LANCASTER — Bill Miller, also known as “the doughnut man,” in Lancaster, has dedicated his life to making high-quality doughnuts for everyone to enjoy.
After 30 years, the Donut World owner is considering retirement but said he will never leave his beloved bakery behind. He plans to give more responsibility to his son and grandson but is not prepared to completely let go.
“I think I'm going to keep the building and let those guys run the business and if they … do well, I will let them do that until the last day I breathe,” Miller said. “If there's any hanky panky or there's something not going right, I'm going to take it back … I will not let it go down the drain.”
Throughout his life, Miller has relied on his work ethic to care for himself and his family. His parents were his main source of inspiration. Their influence taught Miller what it meant to be a hard worker.
During his adolescent summers, Miller helped build houses with his parents and uncle. Always on the go, he rarely spent time with people his own age during the summer. Pool parties and bonfires were replaced with tools and physical labor. Miller developed during those summers, but not socially.
“I really never got to socialize like normal people would because we were always gone in the summertime,” Miller explained. “I didn't get to play football, but I didn't care because we were always busy doing our thing. I never got around people, so I was so shy. It took me a long time to talk to people, but when you run a doughnut shop, you got people. So, you learn how to talk and socialize there.”
As a teenager, Miller also worked at the Jolly Pirate Donut Shop at both the Main and Memorial street locations in Lancaster. During a career spanning 11 years, he worked as a clean-up boy, ran the machinery, became a baker when he was 18 years old and was eventually promoted to the night-shift manager position.
Still a young man, Miller was eager to mature. For about an hour after his shifts at Jolly Pirate, he would sit outside and talk with the night-shift police officers who would come to the shop for a coffee or doughnut.
“I'd sit out front and talk to the police officers,” Miller remembered. “That's how I (was able) to grow up a lot more. … I would listen to (stories of) their lives and then I knew what to look for. I was just freshly married at the time, so I learned from older people.”
He had become a family man while he worked at Jolly Pirate, but the manager’s position did not cover the costs of his young family. Looking to increase his income, but also stick to what he knew best, Miller opened Donut World in Logan, Ohio, in 1989. It was there he learned how to run a business.
A family friend, Neil Graf, rented the Logan building to Miller for about $350 a month. Graf, who Miller considered to be his business mentor, would visit many times during the early years of the business to teach lessons of the trade.
After moving his business to 601 N. Broad St. in Lancaster, in 1993, Donut World reached its full potential. Cars fill the drive-thru 24 hours a day, seven days a week. With no dine-in option, the building is only used to make and sell doughnuts. But it is what Miller does outside the building that he really cares about.
Through his sponsoring of local youth sports programs, private donations, and his weekly doughnut donations to the Lancaster Police Department, Miller feels he has created a “full circle” relationship with the community. He can rarely go anywhere without someone recognizing him.
“My regular customers who come in, we always joke and have fun,” Miller said. “I've been here for so long, so I know so many people, and I can't even go to the grocery store without my wife getting mad and walking off because I have to talk to a lot of people. When you own a doughnut shop, you know a lot of people.”
His relationships with his family have always been tied up in the business as well. His daughter, Heather (Miller) Karcher, has fond memories of her father and Donut World as a little girl. One of her most significant memories is of the nights when her father would take her and her brother with him on his late-night delivery route.
“My brother (and I) would go with him every once in a while, like on the weekends, to do the route with him,” Karcher said. “We'd always stop and get little ham and cheese subs and go on that ride. He’d point out different places and different things to us along the way, and that's just one of the (most fun) things I think that we did with him.”
As Miller has gotten older, his duties at Donut World have become more tiring, but the success of his business and the connections he’s made with people in the community have made the early mornings and late nights on the job worth it.
Looking back on his life, Miller remembered a saying his family had told him. He feels he has fulfilled it.
“My parents and my uncle always told me ‘You don’t want to be shiny,’” Miller recalled. “I am in the middle. I'm not a shiny person; I'm not a dull person. I just want to stay in the middle and have my business and live a good life.”
This article originally appeared on Lancaster Eagle-Gazette: A strong work ethic is the foundation of Bill Miller's world
