Top That! Donuts gets tastily creative to make sure no one tops Point Pleasant Beach shop
POINT PLEASANT BEACH - Growing up in the Bergen County town of Bergenfield, Danielle Wolowitz had great memories of eating doughnuts during summers at the shore. And she and husband Chris were dedicated to creating that iconic experience for others when they launched Top That! Donuts in Point Pleasant Beach in 2014.
“My grandfather had a summer house in Point Pleasant that our family used to spend our summers at and I always loved going to Hoffman’s Donut Shop in Point Pleasant Beach with him,” recalled Wolowitz, 41, a Point Pleasant resident.
After graduating from Caldwell University in Caldwell with a degree in communications, Wolowitz held marketing positions in the office automation/printer industry, where she met husband Chris, a North Arlington native who’d attended Rowan University and majored in art.
“Chris had worked in restaurant management for many years but moved over to a sales position in the office automation industry and we married in 2007,” she said.
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As they considered their next professional opportunity, “We always knew that we wanted to own a local business together, and we kept leaning toward the food industry based on Chris’ background there,” said Wolowitz.
Though they were unsure of which direction to take, a chance culinary experience would soon make their decision clear.
“We ate a warm doughnut while we were on vacation in 2013 and were blown away,” Wolowitz said of their "aha" moment. While their research identified warm doughnut franchises that they could buy into, “we found them restrictive and decided to build one of these shops ourselves.”
“We knew we wanted to be in Point Pleasant,” she explained. “We wanted to build something like Hoffman's had been, and though that shop closed over 15 years ago, another business in Point Pleasant that had been in Hoffman’s space, Joe Leone’s Italian Specialties, gifted us the original batter scale from Hoffman’s, which we still proudly display in our store.”
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Motivated by a number of other strong businesses that got their start in Point Pleasant, including Jersey Mike’s, Bubbakoo’s Burritos and Surf Taco, “there’s something to be said for home-grown ventures,” Wolowitz said.
After investigating a number of storefronts with a real estate agent, “we chose a free-standing space with ample parking formerly occupied by a restaurant on Ocean Avenue by the boardwalk and opened Top That! Donuts in April 2014.”
Treasure trove of toppings
Today, in their 34-seat shop decorated in "retro beach" style, the Wolowitzes have made the warm doughnut concept a new tradition in the Shore area.
Unlike some chains, “nothing is sitting on the shelves after being baked in the morning. Everything is made fresh to order,” Wolowitz said. “We start running your doughnuts right in front of you and you watch us drop them into hot oil in the fryer, flip them over on the belt, and then dip them into the toppings of your choice.”
Starting with a tasty vanilla cake batter made with fresh oil, customers can choose from 18 pre-designed doughnuts or make their own with toppings that include everything from crumbled Oreo pieces and Boston crème to sprinkles, chocolate, bacon, apple, mango, pineapple with toasted coconut and even pork roll.
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Among other options, “our regular glazed doughnut is called the ‘Sticky Fingers,’ our ‘Springsteen’ features red, white, and blue sprinkles, our powdered sugar doughnut is called the ‘Milk Mustache,’ or you can get a plain doughnut in either ‘suntan’ or ‘sunburn’ (extra-crispy) versions,” said Wolowitz of single doughnuts that start at $2.09 and standard dozens that start at $19.99. Special flavors like red velvet and apple cider are also offered seasonally or for different holidays.
“Our ‘Point Beach’ — a cinnamon sugar-rolled doughnut — is our most popular seller, and our ‘Pebbles and Bam Bam,’ which is either a vanilla or chocolate doughnut drenched in Fruity Pebbles, is especially popular among 25- to 35-year-olds because it brings them back to their childhood,” Wolowitz said. “We also sell coffee, tea, iced teas, cold drinks and breakfast sandwiches that can even layer bacon, egg, and cheese between two doughnuts dipped in maple glaze.”
As part of their vision for the shop, “we additionally supply offsite catering to weddings, proms, graduations and other gatherings, prepare individually-packaged doughnuts as favors, make doughnut wedding cakes, and can also rent out space at our store for private parties.”
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Selling as many as 2,000 doughnuts on a busy summer or holiday weekend, the Wolowitzes opened a second store in Rutherford — their first franchise — in February 2019.
“One of the bigger trends in our industry is being over the top or outside the norm — for example, pork roll pieces on a donut are delicious! — and people love our overloaded doughnuts, such as our ‘Apple-icious’ apple pie doughnut and our key lime crème-stuffed doughnut,” she said. “We enjoy getting creative with flavor combinations.”
Supported by five year-round employees and ramping up to 10 or more in the busy summer months, “we’re very fortunate to have great staff members who really care about our business and truly look out for it, even our high school-aged employees,” Wolowitz said.
The support of their loyal team allows Chris to focus on managing the shop’s back-end functions like logistics, ordering and inventory, Danielle to oversee menu creation, staffing, marketing/PR and community events, and the duo to continue to run Shore Business Solutions, an office automation company they co-own in Wall.
'A tradition for so many'
While rising food and other costs have challenged Top That! Donuts as well as many other businesses over the last 18 months, Wolowitz said that competition isn’t a key concern.
“The chain doughnut outlets aren’t main competitors of ours because they’re focused on volume more than creativity,” she said.
By contrast, “we offer an experience where people can sit down and relax and kids can play in our kid zone," she said. "We do story time, crafts with kids and more. We’re a destination.”
Looking ahead, “we’re going on Grubhub this June to enable convenient delivery to customers and expand our reach and are bringing back fruity flavors for the summer,” Wolowitz said. “Our cold brew coffee is also back and this summer we’ll also be offering our breakfast sandwiches — which are only available on weekends during the rest of the year — seven days a week.”
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Longer-term, she said that they hope to open additional new stores and secure more wholesale accounts.
While the pandemic negatively impacted some area businesses, Wolowitz said that Top That! Donuts reopened for Easter weekend in 2020 and has been going strong ever since.
“We’re such a tradition for so many,” she said. “We do a lot of fundraisers for the community and they all came out to support us.”
As America prepares to celebrate National Doughnut Day this Friday (which Top That! Donuts will commemorate by offering a free doughnut to all kids 12 and under and extended hours until 5 p.m. that day), a sense of community continues to be at the heart of the Wolowitzes' hometown shop.
“It’s about building those memories and stories, having families come in year after year, and watching their kids grow up,” she said. “We enjoy the friendships and the wonderful family moments we get to be a part of.”
“I especially love seeing the smiles on kids’ faces when you hand them the doughnut they designed,” added Wolowitz, whose shop recently hosted a dozen teachers from five area schools who topped doughnuts for their student-customers as a fundraiser.
"The kids were so excited to have their teachers make their donuts!” she said. “We love the experiences and memories we’re helping to create.”
Top That! Donuts
Location: 210 Ocean Ave. North, Point Pleasant Beach
Phone: 732-899-2552
Owners: Chris and Danielle Wolowitz
Launched: 2014
Website: topthatdonuts.com
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Top That! Donuts gets creative at Point Pleasant Beach NJ shop
